The Talented, Kind, and Unselfish Leader - Junior Seau:

Junior Seau was 43 years old.  He played 20 seasons for the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins, and New England Patriots.  For some reaction check out Marcellus Wiley react on-air to the death of his former teammate.

Also check out the reaction from Junior Seau's mother.



Junior Seau's untimely death reminds of us of what is important in life.  So take a minute today to appreciate what you have and if you ever need help, there is always a friend or family member around to help you.  RIP Junior Seau and the approximately 100 other suicide victims yesterday.

"Things are never so bad that they couldn't be worse." - Bill Veeck

NBA Launches Tumblr/Pinterest Pages for Playoffs

Pinterest. Tumblr. NBA Playoffs? One of these things is not like the others… but in order to extend their social media presence in time for the 2012 Playoffs, the NBA now has pages on both Pinterest and Tumblr. These campaigns will support existing Twitter and Facebook campaigns.

The main purpose of these extensions is to increase attention to the playoffs through photo sharing. The league sees this as a worthwhile endeavor to use their “rich library of content to drive further engagement.”

Color me skeptical; I’m all about extending social media engagement wherever possible, but when I think of the NBA, Pinterest and Tumblr is largely incongruent. The main demographics for these two social media sites are hipsters and women. Unless I’ve missed something, I don’t think these are the most active supporters of the NBA. Expanding the league’s social media footprint to as many people as possible is a great idea, but this might be too large a jump. (Facts to back my assertions up courtesy of MarketingPilgrim.com: 68% of Pinterest users are female, compared to 38% of NBA fans) Noble idea, unlikely reward.

This being said, the NBA also plans on trying to push a great deal of e-commerce through both platforms—this is about the only way Pinterest makes sense to me, although they’re going to get to offer a bit more than another outlet to buy league apparel to get (let alone keep) the attention of users. Whether that’s possible has yet to be seen.

What do you think? Is this a brilliant business move on the NBA’s part, or a flop-campaign in the making?

Co-Op Confidential - Greg Monforte

Name: Greg Monforte
Year: Sophomore
Company: Daddis Fight Camp
Location: Cherry Hill, NJ

What does Daddis do?

Daddis is one of the best Mixed Martial Arts schools in the area.  They offer lots of martial arts training including Muay Thai and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. 

What are you doing?

My coop so far has consisted of mostly the regular gym maintenance and greeting and helping students when they arrive.  Gym maintenance includes the everyday cleaning and helping with side projects that need to be done around the gym.  This week I started making cold calls to potential clients who took a free lesson before but never signed up.  I am offering them a discounted deal to try to help boost enrollment.  Another part of the job that I have been working on so far is sales training.  Once the sales training is complete, I will start doing the introduction lessons for new students.  The final aspect that I have done so far is helping with in-house events.  This past weekend Daddis held a Family Fun Day.  My responsibilities for this event included making the schedule of events, setting up these events the day of, working the event, and the clean up after the event was over. 

What will you be working on?

As my coop goes on my job responsibilities will continue to grow.  I will be done the sales training soon and will start selling their program to perspective students.  At Daddis we are working towards the goal of getting forty five new members to sign up in the month of May.  Doing cold calls every day will help us reach and hopefully surpass this goal.  As summer gets closer there will be more events held in-house and at their Philadelphia location that I will be helping with.  These events include tournaments, staff meetings, and kids’ summer camps. 

Do you like it so far?

So far my coop has been a great experience and I have enjoyed it a lot.  One of the best aspects about my particular coop is I get to do experience many different areas of the job.  When my coop is over I will have experience in sales, marketing, and event management which gives me a better idea of what I will want to do later in my career.  My personal favorite part of the job is that I get to train for free.  This may not interest a lot of students at Drexel but I have always been a fan of MMA and use to train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in high school.  As I got older it became harder to train because of the financial burden and time management between school, work, and training.  Now I have more time and can train for free at one of the best MMA schools in the area. 

Be honest, are there any downsides?

Even though I really enjoy my coop there are always cons at every work place.  The biggest con is that the job can be slow and a little boring at times.  When I am not training or helping around the gym my job is to sit at the front desk and greet students as they come in.  This can be boring because most of the time I am the only one at the desk.  Another con is that since I am the intern and new at the school I have to do a lot of the jobs that no one else wants to do.  This can include cleaning the bathrooms, weeding outside, and organizing the equipment. 

What are you looking forward to? 

When my coop is complete in September I would have learned many skills that I can use in my career.  One of these skills is cold calls.  If I get into sales for a career this will be of the main parts of my job.  I can practice at Daddis to get use to making calls to people I do not and get use to people rejecting what I have to say.  Networking will be a huge advantage that I will get from my time at Daddis.  They have many connections with Bellator and the UFC which could help me get a job at either one of these organizations later.  Finally if I wanted to get into Event Management I will have a lot of experience in that area when I am done.  By the time my coop is over I would have helped run close to five tournaments, summer camps all summer, and countless other events including staff meetings.      

SMTSU Blog Contest

DATES OF CONTEST: May 1^st 2012 to May 31^st 2012

HOW TO ENTER: Go to www.drexelsmtsu.blogspot.com “The Sports Complex” and comment on one or more of the blog posts.  Each comment will enter the commenters name into a prize drawing (Ex. One comment = name into drawing once, two comments = name into drawing twice, etc.).

WHY: After the contest period of May 1^st to May 31^st, comments will be tallied and the drawing will be held on or about Friday June 1^st, 2012.  The winner of the prize drawing will be randomly selected and contacted via email or phone. 

PRIZES: One (1) grand prize will be awarded.  The grand prize is a Drexel SMTSU prize pack consisting of one (1) SMTSU Keychain, one (1) SMTSU Water Bottle, and (1) SMTSU Drawstring Bag. 

Prizes will be provided by the Sport Management Student Union

This contest is open to everybody everywhere.

Any comment containing profanity/obscene language will be deleted and participant will be disqualified.

2012 NFL Draft - Round One

With the first two picks pretty much decided with the quarterbacks from Stanford, Andrew Luck going to the Indianapolis Colts and Baylor, Robert Griffin III going to the Washington Redskins, how will the rest of the first round picks go? With players stock value rising and falling in the past weeks with new players being put on the table and others being taken off, tune to ESPN at 8 PM to watch how the first round goes.

Here is a mock draft of how the night could go.

How Sports Teams Can Leverage Instagram

The saying "a picture says a thousand words" is a true, if not overly used expression. But as Facebook's recent acquisition of photo-sharing social media platform Instagram proved just two weeks ago, a picture, or rather a way to share a picture, is worth a billion dollars. 

It's surely frustrating for sports franchises, having new platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest pop up just when it feels like they're really getting the hang of Facebook and Twitter. Staying ahead of the social media curve is important though, and that means we will surely see many teams popping up on Facebook's new baby in the near future. In fact, some teams like the Celtics, Knicks, Bulls and Eagles have already jumped on the opportunity to create some more brand exposure and build stronger relationships with their fan bases. 

We can all agree it's a pretty sweet app with a simple, attractive layout, but how can teams use it? It's pretty simple, really. Use it for whatever you want to promote. New facilities, a new ad campaign, a particular event or promotion. Instagram can serve essentially as a digital billboard in a way that not even Twitter can. Below, check out a picture from the Eagles' Instagram account (@philadelphiaeagles), with the caption "Jeremy Maclin participating in our first #Google + hangout #philadelphiaeagles".

-Written by Dan Mullin

Say It Saint So

The Mayans predicted it and we are seemingly living it.  The end of the world is quickly approaching.  Snooki is pregnant.  Dick Clark, the king of New Years, has passed on.  World Peace is on the brink of suspension after throwing a vicious elbow to the face and beard of James Harden.  And now, the Saints are accused of major NFL sin, again! 

First it was Bountygate, which got head coach Sean Payton a yearlong boot from the Saint’s sideline.  Sanctions also included interim head coach Joe Vitt getting a 6 game suspension and left the team looking for an interim interim head coach.  GM Mickey Loomis got handed an 8 game suspension.   Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams is suspended indefinitely and facing an uphill battle to be allowed to coach again.  The team was also fined half a million dollars and players wait to hear their fate. 

The Saints have since moved on, believe it or not, but not to any better of a place.  Now, GM Mickey Loomis is facing allegations of bugging opposing teams between 2002 and 2004.  Putting them somewhere between Watergate and Spygate, the Saints are once again in damage control mode.  The team maintains that the reports are “1,000% inaccurate” (we will ignore the impossibility of that statement).   

Of course, Bountygate was bad, but NFL Watergate is just as bad.  We are talking about the integrity of the game being put into serious question.  The competitive advantage that the eavesdropping could have provided is said to be minimal, if any, which raises my personal question, why do it?  Yes it is bad to cheat and steal other team’s plays by bugging their lines of communication but at least there is a reason.  Mickey Loomis’s latest offense seems to have little purpose or application which just makes me wonder why he would ever put the team in harm’s way like this.   

Who knows what is going to come out of this for Loomis.  Maybe criminal charges.  Maybe more punishment from the league.  What is definite though is that every move the Saints make for now on will face intense scrutiny.  The Saints now face a slippery uphill slope in rebuilding their image and brand.  Making Drew Brees happy again would be a great start to rebuilding a damaged brand.  We have all seen what he has done for the city of New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck.

Unfortunately for now, the Saints have gone from “Who Dat?” to “Who Done It?”.