Coker grad featured in Greenbrier Tourney Story

Tyson Thompson, a Coker graduate, is in the final week of a summer internship with the Greenbrier Classic, a PGA golf tour event. During the tournament week he was part of a story about the new tournament and the internship.

Tyson was my advisee during his four years at Coker, where he majored in communication and spent a great deal of time interning in the Sports Information Department. He also spent a good bit of time on the tennis courts as a member of the Coker College tennis team. Tyson had always wanted to get into sports for his career and he crafted his communication degree with a strong emphasis on sports communication. Following his time at Coker he put in a year at Wofford University as a Sports Information Intern. He followed that up with a place in the highly ranked and highly competitive Masters in Sports Management program at the University of West Virginia.

I remember one of his internships -- with a minor league baseball team in Hickory, NC, the Crawdads. He put in regular 70-hour weeks when the team was home and did everything from ticket sales to on-field promotions, to hosting youth groups and the list goes on. He was not sure that he wanted to work in minor league baseball after that stint but it certainly was good training for his golf internship. In his facebook posts he mentioned several weeks where a good night's sleep might have been four hours and then it was back to work.

Tyson now has some terrific academic background and real-world experience that is going to make him a valuable find for some organization.

Graduate Students shares some ideas with Coker Communication Seminar

Tyson Thompson, a 2008 graduate of Coker College with a major in communication, visited the campus on March 29th and shared some information about Graduate School with members of the Coker Communication Senior Seminar. Tyson talked about his Sport Management Program at West Virginia University, one of the top ranked in the USA. He talked to the class about internships that were important to getting him into the program as well as some of the interesting things he has been able to work on as part of the WVU program. This was part of the "Morrie" section of this seminar. That is when people from outside come in and share ideas, experiences and often life insights with the students. Tyson is in the same age group as my students and I think his experience with graduate school did provide some insights for the class.

Seems that the Blogger program is not allowing photos today so I will post this without the photo. The students and I really appreciate the time that people give to this section of the class and Tyson's talk was right on target.