Marietta College’s Rick Smith, Assistant Professor of Sport Management, will join the Community Captains Committee — a group that plans and facilitates the events and activities leading up to ESPN’s Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl.
Smith’s affiliation with the bowl started last year when he led a group of seven students and another Marietta College employee to South Florida as volunteers at the bowl game.
“This is a great honor for our program,” Smith said. “Our experience last year was second-to-none, and we look forward to joining the ESPN and bowl game staff to help execute another great bowl game, including the activities leading into the game.”
The Boca Raton Community Captains Committee is comprised of Boca Raton community leaders with various professional backgrounds.
Doug Mosely, Executive Director of the Boca Raton Bowl, asked Smith to join the committee after seeing first-hand the quality contributions he and the students made during the 2017 bowl game.
“Rick’s background in sports, coupled with his knowledge of the Boca Raton community, will be an asset to our committee and we look forward to him joining us,” Mosely said.
Last year, the Marietta College group assisted with the bowl game’s pep rallies, fan engagement events, sponsor fulfillment, luncheon, and in-game operations, such as game statistics, hospitality, and trophy ceremony. Students also had the opportunity to meet with sports professionals in the community, such as Ancel Prat III, a former executive with the Miami Heat.
“It was a great parallel between classroom content and real-life experience,” Smith said. “The experience they had has already translated well for students who earned internships this summer, and it will continue to translate well during future internship and job interviews and beyond.”
Marietta plans to send 10 students back to South Florida to volunteer for the Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl, which will be played Dec. 18 and broadcast live on ESPN. The experiential education opportunity is open to students of all majors and is expected to last from Dec. 12 – 19. The estimated cost is $1,000 per student and students are expected to participate in planning activities and conference calls through the fall semester, as well as raise funds for the trip to lower the cost.
Smith said the students will be involved first-hand in all of the activity production, “giving them a great experience and in-depth understanding of how sports event management, fan engagement, sales fulfillment, and game operations work.”
Anyone interested in learning more or being a part of the team should contact Rick Smith at rick.smith@marietta.edu.