Career In Sports Forum Introduces Future Possibilities For Viking Athletes

For Senior Golfer Mariana Garcia Rosette, the biggest lessons were passion for what you do and endless possibilities.     

For junior running back (now a graduate student) Jobi Malary, it was risk taking.     

For tennis player Andrea Brignacca, who finished the year with his MBA and is currently in Chicago on an internship, it was about widening his horizons about possible sports careers and the rewards of working with developing athletes.    

Those three Viking athletes attended this year’s NCAA-sponsored Career in Sports Forum in Indianapolis, IN, in early June. They were among just 200 athletes across all three NCAA divisions selected for the forum, a wide-ranging seminar dealing with personal development issues and career opportunities relating to careers in sports at all levels. It was the second year three PSU athletes were chosen to attend.    

“It’s an amazing opportunity to further your professional development by learning more about the potential for careers in sports. It helps chart career paths and helps attendees understand some of the psychological veins involved in developing athletes and careers in athletics,” said Libby Bissen, Portland State Director of Academic Services, who was instrumental in the PSU participation.    

Garcia Rosette, from Tijuana, Mexico, has always been interested in a sports career and said the lessons available from the conference “were endless, but some of my biggest takeaways are to be passionate about what you do, understand the value you bring to the room…and that everything is possible.” 

Among the most useful information for Malary, from Gresham, OR’s Sam Barlow High School and has two years of eligibility left, was “to not be afraid to take risks. One thing all successful people have in common is that they all failed at some point.” Risk taking involves the possibility of failing, he said. “I’ve been learning to take more risks for myself in order to see progress in myself.”

Brignacca, from Turin, Italy and whose father is a tennis coach, found the forum most useful in introducing him to a wide range of career opportunities. “I saw a lot of jobs I’d never thought about” on both the professional and collegiate level. “The most interesting thing I learned is how athletes’ development can be pretty cool. You get to engage with players, make their lives easier and help them throughout their careers.”    

The forum also gave Brignacca a chance to see another part of the country after spending his last two years of high school and four undergraduate years in South Carolina and Florida prior to earning his MBA while playing on the Viking tennis team.    

For Malary and Garcia Rosette, the personal intangibles really resonated.    

“Everything is impossible until someone does it. At the end of the day, you have to do what you love and how you do anything is how you do everything,” said Garcia Rosette.     

Malary also got a lesson in perspective. “One of the best things I learned was about having perspective. (That’s) super important because it gives you the opportunity to understand what others do and what it’s like to be in their shoes.”    

And for Garcia Rosette and Brignacca, the forum helped strengthen their desire for a post-collegiate career in sports. Both went with athletic career desires already budding.    

“I’ve always been interested in a career in sports. This made me realize my desire to help the development of others, whether it’s student athletes or professionals, I want to make the athletic community better,” said Garcia Rosette.     

Not surprisingly, tennis is the focus for Brignacca. “As of right now, the tennis industry is more successful. Tennis is the third biggest sport in the world, and it probably gets a quarter of the attention compared to basketball and soccer worldwide. My goal is to change that.” Whether in the US or Europe depends on visa issues, although he’d ultimately like to return to Europe, he said.     

Malary still isn’t sure. “I was interested because I wanted to know what a career in sports would look like. And, of course, playing sports my whole life made me think about what I could do after I get done with sports,” he said.   

The forum certainly opened his eyes to a host of possibilities.    

“I’m not 100 percent sure what career I want to pursue or how far I want to go in it,” said Malary, who has earned a degree in Business and Marketing. He’s still looking but knows that “I’ll put everything I have into it, and I know I will do great things (perhaps taking a few risks along the way).”      

Different thoughts. Different outcomes. But, definitely valuable to Garcia Rosette, Malary and Brignacca.