< Previous18 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ATHLETICS Former Athletes Find Careers in the Business World of Sports Written by Craig Meyer very year, hundreds of Pitt athletes leave the place they’ve called home for the past several years and enter the broader, sometimes uncertain professional world. Throughout their lives, these young people have been defined at least in part by the sports in which they excel. Even if they continue playing in a professional league domestically or internationally beyond graduation, the ball eventually stops bouncing or rolling. At that point, they’re faced with an age- old question: What’s next? For at least some former athletes, that next step takes them to a familiar destination. A slew of former Pitt athletes has left the courts and fields on which they once played and found careers in the business side of the world of sports. Though no longer under the bright lights of competition, these individuals work diligently behind the scenes with professional leagues, individual franchises, university athletic departments and other sports-related entities to make sure the feats of athleticism that entertain and inspire countless people are possible. Here are some of their stories. Marcus Bowman (BUS ’06, ’10G) N early 20 years later, Marcus Bowman can still remember the moment when he received an offer to join Pitt Athletics. While traveling in Europe with his then girlfriend (now wife) following their graduation from Pitt in 2006, Bowman received an email from Donna Sanft, then his alma mater’s executive associate athletic director, who he had known during his time as a student and men’s basketball player. A position in the business office of the Pitt Department of Athletics had opened up, and she wanted to know if he would be interested. It was the metaphorical open door that led Bowman to a successful career working in college sports administration. He’s now in his fourth year as the deputy athletic director for business strategy and chief financial officer at the University of Oklahoma. Working under Joe Castiglione, one of the country’s longest tenured and most respected athletic directors, Bowman oversees the Sooners’ fiscal and business strategy, the development and monitoring of operating and capital budgets, and the university’s transition from the Big 12 Conference to the Southeastern Conference, among other responsibilities. “I kind of always thought if I could combine my love and passion for sports with my educational background in school—which was business and finance—that I would have a career and a profession, not just a job,” Bowman says. “There’s a difference between the two.” Those dual loves Bowman referenced were fortified at Pitt, where he earned a degree in business administration on a full academic scholarship while playing four seasons with the Panthers basketball team from 2002 to 2006, when it was one of the sport’s dominant programs nationally. With his business background, he was offered a job at PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., where he had interned the summer between his junior and senior years, but once the opportunity with Pitt Athletics arose, he began doubting whether he wanted to spend the rest of his life as a banker. Ultimately, he interviewed for and was offered the position Sanft had emailed him about and began working for Pitt Athletics as its director of business operations. “To have the opportunity for your first job to work at your alma mater Bowman with fellow Pitt alum and current college football broadcaster Yogi Roth at the UNLV vs. USC football game.H2P MAGAZINE SPRING 2024 19 in sports—to say that was a dream come true, that probably would be an understatement,” Bowman says. “It meant everything.” Working with many people with whom he had a preexisting relationship, Bowman immersed himself in his new role. It was an educational experience. Though he had been an athlete, Bowman admittedly had no idea of everything that went into events he once took for granted, like hosting a basketball or football game. Wanting to learn more, Bowman says that he became “a sponge,” regularly volunteering himself for tasks outside his job description. That drive helped him to earn a series of promotions, culminating in the position of senior associate athletic director for sport administration. Though he left Pitt in December 2017 for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where he spent three years as the senior associate athletic director and chief financial officer before moving on to Oklahoma, Pitt remains close to his heart. “My time working at Pitt, it was life changing,” he says. “It set me up for so much. Pittsburgh, the city, is just amazing. I met my wife there. I got married. Two of my kids were born there. It will always have a special place in my family’s heart. I still root like hell for them. I want to see them do so well and be so successful in everything they do. I’ll always be a Pitt Panther.” Katie O’Rourke (CGS ’14, BUS ’16G) O'Rourke loves creating a unique in-game fan experience for Washington Nationals fans. K atie O’Rourke is no stranger to pressure. A Pitt gymnast from 2010 to 2014, O’Rourke was regularly asked to pull off athletic feats that are unimaginable to the average person while upholding the lofty expectations she had for herself. If you can successfully land a flip on a 4-inch-wide balance beam, virtually any other challenge that gets thrown your way seems easy by comparison. It’s those experiences that she carries with her in her current position as the senior manager of game presentation for the Washington Nationals. “It puts it all back into perspective,” O’Rourke says. “It really kind of molded me into who I am [in that I was] able to take those seconds to realize, OK, something might have gone wrong, but where can we pivot to fix it, not freak out about it, and keep our cool? Having that background has helped me tremendously in this role.” After receiving an ACC postgraduate scholarship following a gymnastics career in which she competed at the NCAA regional championships three times, O’Rourke continued at Pitt, earning her MBA while working in the athletics department. During that time, her next step in life became clear. “I knew I wanted to work in sports, and I knew I liked marketing, but I just didn’t know past that about the ins and outs of what actually exists within the sports world,” she says. “That [earning an MBA while working in Pitt Athletics] opened my eyes.” The Springfield, Virginia, native moved back home to the Washington, D.C., area after earning her MBA and began working part time in partnerships for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the company that owns the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals and Washington Mystics. In 2017, she joined the Nationals, with whom she assumed her current role in March 2024, after working part time for years. With the Nationals, who won the World Series in 2019 while she was with the organization, O’Rourke balances a variety of tasks. She oversees the NatPack, the entertainment team that selects fans at the ballpark to play games and hands out free swag like t-shirts. She works with the Nationals’ racing presidents—like the pierogy race at PNC Park, only with people wearing costumes of former U.S. heads of state—bullpen cart drivers, ball girls and mascot handlers, the last of whom are jokingly referred to as “the secret service.” She books singers to perform the national anthem and “God Bless America.” She even works with the military to coordinate stadium flyovers for special games. If it sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. How, exactly, does O’Rourke do it? The answer can be traced back to her Pitt gymnastics career. As a gymnast, O’Rourke said she was taught to have a “goldfish brain,” a short memory that 20 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ATHLETICS doesn’t allow her to be inflated by past success or weighed down by recent failures. Along with that, she routinely thinks back to a slogan the Panthers had during her time with them: “commitment, teamwork and pride,” all traits and ideals she works every day to embody both personally and professionally. “I kind of had to jump in with both feet and drink from the fire hose, but in this industry, I feel like that’s how you learn,” O’Rourke says. “Being able to keep my cool, I credit all of that to being an athlete and everything I learned at Pitt.” Lousaka Polite (CGS ’15) Polite presents to a group of recently retired NFL players and their families about benefits that they have earned. T he person on the other end of each call Lousaka Polite makes every day at his job is someone he knows well. After all, it’s him—or at least some version of him. As the director of outreach for The Trust (Powered by the NFLPA), Polite is responsible for reaching out to every eligible former NFL player with two or more credited seasons to ensure they’re aware of benefits they’ve earned through their time of service, as mandated by the league’s collective bargaining agreement. Once they’ve learned of those available benefits, they can enroll to receive them. Launched in 2013, The Trust, in its own words, was launched to “provide former players with the support they need to succeed in life after football.” Polite was once in the position of needing that support himself. A bruising running back at Pitt from 2000 to 2003, Polite played nine seasons in the NFL for five different franchises from 2004 to 2012, first as a running back and later as a fullback. Polite can still remember the lingering feeling of uncertainty he felt even before his career ended as he worried what the next phase of his life might entail. “I came to grips early that I wasn’t going to retire with a big announcement and a big press conference and all that,” Polite says. “That wasn’t going to be my story. I wasn’t going to have a bust in Canton, Ohio, or anything like that. My approach was one that helped me come to grips with it sooner, but that doesn’t make it any easier.” He had been interested in working in sports during his time at Pitt, where he took sports psychology courses. After planning for life after football even while he was an active NFL player, Polite immediately found work, joining one of his former teams, the Miami Dolphins, as operations coordinator for entertainment and brand impact. After a few years there, he found his way back to Pitt, where he served as the assistant athletic director of the Varsity Letter Club and worked in the Cathy & John Pelusi Family Life Skills Program. Back at his alma mater, he leaned on his experiences as a former Pitt athlete to help a new generation of Panthers. “I was able to leverage that credibility piece—playing in the league, going to Pitt,” Polite says. “I think that made it very easy to connect with the players and the athletes. I felt like it was my calling.” Now in his fourth year with The Trust, Polite is still guided by that calling while forming meaningful bonds with those with backgrounds similar to his own.H2P MAGAZINE SPRING 2024 21 “When I get on the phone with a former player, [I hear] the light switch turning on, like ‘Oh, there’s so much more out there for me.’ When I see a guy has identified what he wants to be beyond the game of football, I think that’s the most rewarding piece,” he says. “For so long, we’ve been programmed to be kind of robots and just be machines and go after this thing that everyone is going after, but not everyone achieves it. Even when you do achieve it, you’re going to have to learn how to pivot and transition. What does that look like?” Carly Thea (A&S ’15) Thea worked at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon. T his summer, the best athletes from around the world will descend on Paris, France, for the 2024 Summer Olympics, where track and field will be among the most closely monitored sports for fans in the United States and beyond. As American athletes showcase themselves to the world by sprinting 100 meters to potential glory or using a pole to launch themselves as high as 20 feet in the air, Carly Thea will be maintaining some connection to them. As senior manager of business development and partnerships for USA Track & Field (USATF), she works diligently to elevate the sport while leaning on the valuable lessons she learned in her time as a college athlete. “Accountability, teamwork and hard work—you learn all of those things from being a college athlete,” Thea says. “You have to be accountable for yourself on the field [and] off the field, getting all your schoolwork done while still performing on the field and playing the role you need to play for your team." Following her playing days at Pitt, which were capped off by the Panthers’ first-ever run to the ACC softball championship game in 2015, Thea pursued a career in sports, believing it to be a space where camaraderie, passion and hard work are valued. After working as a marketing intern for Fox Sports in the Miami, Florida, area, she moved closer to her native Merrick, New York, to join the New York Yankees organization, where she worked in various roles for four and a half years. By the end of that stretch, and right as the far-reaching effects of the COVID-19 pandemic were giving her time to reflect on her career, she realized it was time for a change. “I wanted to continue to build my career and continue to expand my skills,” Thea says. “I think with USA Track & Field, it was honestly an interesting challenge. It’s a sport, but a different sports world because it’s a national governing body. The way it works is much different [from] a league.” In her role, Thea deals primarily with account management and business development, the latter of which is particularly notable given that USATF is a nonprofit organization. With most of USATF’s revenue coming in from sponsorships, Thea is responsible for helping to bring in new partners and new companies. That task of forming and fostering relationships with others is one that she embraces. The job has offered her plenty of professional and personal highlights. Among all those, working at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, stands out. She worked tirelessly during the day to help make everything function smoothly, sometimes beginning at 8 a.m. and not finishing until 1 a.m., but the sheer size of the event, from the number of athletes competing to the enormity of what they were vying for, was awe inspiring. For Thea, it was a reminder of why she does what she does. “I think I’m really enjoying the fact we’re trying to grow the sport in the United States to be not just every four years when everyone thinks of it,” she says. “I think we’re on our way and taking steps toward that. There’s still plenty of work to do, but I think it will really give people another sport to fall in love with.” 22 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ATHLETICS COVER STORY Hinson Leaves LEGACY OF WINNING and PERSONAL GROWTH Written by Josh Rowntree t the first practice of the 2023-24 college basketball season, Pitt men’s basketball head coach Jeff Capel walked into the Petersen Events Center ready to address his team for the first time. But, before he even entered the gym, someone had already beaten him to the punch.H2P MAGAZINE SPRING 2024 23B lake Hinson, one of the centerpieces of the Panthers’ NCAA tournament run the spring before, was already instructing the group on the mindset they needed to have for that day and for the season to come. “I thought, ‘Wow, what he said was pretty dang good,’” Capel recalled of Hinson's speech. “And then he did it again the next day. I just got close and listened and was like, man, that’s way better than what I was going to say. So I just let him do it.” It was a sign of trust from Capel following a breakthrough season both for Hinson and the Panthers. “It was important for me to take on the leadership role,” says Hinson. “If you’re going to be the person out there taking the majority of the shots and all of the articles are being written about you, then you need to be the face of the team on the court and off the court.” But that initiative and all those shots— many of which came from extraordinary distances—weren’t something Hinson saw coming from himself when he first walked onto Pitt’s campus in 2022. His college career, to put it lightly, had floundered. He had gone two seasons without playing in a college basketball game and was on his third school. He needed a chance, he needed to believe in himself and he needed those around him to believe in him. “When I showed up at Pitt, I wasn’t confident in who I was,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if I was the problem. I wasn’t sure if people would like me. I wasn’t sure if I was a good person to be around or not. I just wasn’t sure about my personality, my play style, any of that. “But when I came to Pitt after they recruited me, I saw that what I bring on and off the court is enough to bring winning. I continued to be me in that winning. Whether it was going bad or going well, I continued to be me.” The word “enough” has special meaning for Hinson these days. To feel it, he needed the backing he got at Pitt. He needed the structure provided by Pitt’s athletics department. He needed an experienced coaching staff. He needed a passionate fan base ready to celebrate again. And he needed Capel. “I knew I wanted a coach with experience who could elevate my game,” says Hinson. “When I finally got there, I had a good feeling.” Hinson admits that Capel’s style is different from what he had seen in other coaches, but it’s one that meshed with him immediately. “He puts a lot of responsibility on the players,” says Hinson. “He isn’t so power hungry of a coach. He puts a lot of the power on you and pressure on you to manage the team on and off the court and to manage yourself to do the right things. “He puts you in a position where you have to fight for yourself and learn how to win.” Capel and his staff had kept tabs on Hinson over the years, starting when he came out of high school in 2018, but hadn’t offered him a scholarship— something Capel now half-jokingly refers to as a “stupid” oversight. But when the 6-foot-8 Deltona, Florida, native was available in the transfer portal following two seasons at Iowa State, Capel finally made the call. “Our paths crossed for a reason,” Capel said following Hinson’s 21-point senior day performance against the NC State Wolfpack. “We needed him. He needed us. It’s been an unbelievable journey.” Early on, Hinson got glimpses of Capel’s full belief in him. “At practice one day, I passed out of a transition three,” he recalls of his first season at Pitt. “I threw it to somebody else. We actually made a layup, but Greg [Elliot] came up to me and said, ‘You should’ve shot that.’ “I told Greg, ‘I don’t have to shoot that,’ because I’m thinking that I have to change my play style to be accepted. “Coach Capel steps in and says, ‘I never want you to second-guess that shot. I need you to shoot that shot.’ “We’re talking about a transition three here. It’s not always a good shot.”H2P MAGAZINE SPRING 2024 25 “ There were other moments, too, like Hinson’s launching of what he calls a “wildly deep” three-pointer against Florida State in the 2022-23 season. He thought he’d hear from Pitt’s coaching staff about taking a bad shot. But no one said a word. “That gave me the reins to be like, alright, he doesn’t care how far I shoot it,” Hinson says. This past season, following Pitt’s 0-3 ACC start, including a 70-57 home loss to North Carolina, Hinson showed up to practice back in his shell. “I wasn’t speaking much,” he says. “I felt like I let the team down with my performance. [Capel] reassured me once again. He told me, ‘You feel like you’re letting me down because of the last game. You didn’t. But you are letting me down coming to practice and not saying anything. I came to practice today expecting you to be here. And you aren’t being you.’” Hinson remembers those words and moments vividly. They weren’t just monumental for him as a player but also as a person. “My years in college, and even my other years in general, I always felt like an outcast because of my personality,” he says. “People didn’t really want to agree too much with how I want to live my life and how my attitude is kind of pushed away. “This was the first place where I was myself and I was embraced, not only by the coaching staff but by the city.” Hinson was involved in 46 wins over two seasons at Pitt. He scored 15.3 and 18.5 points per game over the past two seasons, earning second and first-team All-ACC nods. He set a school record with 110 three-pointers made in his final year, including an incredible 7-of- 7 performance from beyond the arc against No. 7 Duke in Pitt’s 80-76 win at Cameron Indoor Stadium in January. “This season, that was the game, that was the moment,” he says. “Being 1-5 [in the ACC at the time], looking for a spark and winning. No one had us winning. “Winning slingshotted us and gave us momentum. It let everybody know. It was a physical game, a representation of us that everyone had to feel.” There were other jaw-dropping games, like his 41-point performance against Louisville in February as well as his 29 points and nine three-pointers made in a blowout win over rival West Virginia in Morgantown in December. “It was a rivalry game on the road,” he says of the 80-63 win. “The team wasn’t having a load of success. It was a young team coming into WVU. A lot of our guys I talked to before the game said they hadn’t ever participated in a rivalry game or had never won one. “I think I showed the whole package in that game. I showed my talent and leadership.” With Hinson’s success came Pitt’s, including the Panthers’ two NCAA tournament victories in 2023. While the Panthers had numerous veteran contributors to that team, his style and flair for the breathtaking enamored him to Pitt’s fan base. “Finding somewhere that embraced me was honestly something I never really saw coming,” he says. “I was just myself and was embraced by the coaching staff and the city. I appreciate the love and being called the centerpiece of the turnaround. But, also, I really don’t like that because I understand how many people played a part in this.” Hinson’s legacy is not one he expected or even thought was possible. With ambitions of playing professional basketball in the years ahead, he knows that he put in the work to achieve his dreams. He also understands that others helped and that there is no such thing as being totally self-made. Hinson admits that he didn’t feel like he was enough before coming to Pitt. But now, more than any shot he hit or any game he won, what he hopes to leave behind is a legacy of personal growth in a variety of ways. It’s something he feels could be a beneficial message to other young people feeling the way he once felt. “You always can do whatever you put your mind toward,” he says. “There’s no excuse for the situation you were in or were put in. There’s always a way; you’ve just got to find it.” This was the first place where I was myself and I was embraced, not only by the coaching staff but by the city.”26 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ATHLETICS TOP MOMENTS OF 2023-24 Luke Henseler competed at the NCAA Cross County Championships for the second consecutive season. It is the first time a Panther has competed in the championship meet in back-to-back seasons since Keith Dowling did so in 1989 and 1990. The Men’s Soccer team celebrates a first half goal by Eben McIntyre off an assist from Filip Mirkovic during a dominant 3-0 victory over No. 9 Wake Forest at Ambrose Urbanic Field. The Pitt Women’s Soccer team celebrates Samiah Phiri and Ellie Coffield after the duo produced the game-winning goal to take down the Duke Blue Devils for the first time in program history. Quarterback Nate Yarnell directs the Pitt Band after leading the Panthers to a 24-16 victory over Boston College in front of a national television audience. H2P MAGAZINE SPRING 2024 27 On Nov. 7, 2023, the Pitt Women's Basketball team collected a 79-74 season-opening victory over the Yale Bulldogs, marking the first win of the Head Coach Tory Verdi era. Pitt Women’s Volleyball once again defeated Louisville in a reverse sweep to advance to its third-straight Final Four in a sold-out Fitzgerald Field House. Blake Hinson celebrates on press row following Pitt’s dramatic 80-76 win over No. 7 Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium in January. Hinson scored 24 points and matched an ACC record by going 7-of-7 from three-point range against the Blue Devils. Foluke Olujide-Ajibade and Lydia Bottelier were named Second Team All-Americans after their appearance at the 2024 NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships. Bottelier finished 13th in the pentathlon and Olujide-Ajibade finished 15th in the weight throw.Next >