A Summer with the NSLC
James and his friends stand for a quick photo in the hotel at the NSLC summer camp.
September 28, 2021
It is a struggle to know what passion to pursue in college, even more so because it is daunting to know college is a huge step towards a mostly unchanging future career. While many continue to struggle up until the point of senior year of high school, James Porter-Delgardo has got it all figured out. Despite knowing he wanted to go into a career in sports for most of his life, James said after this summer and his experiences at the NSLC summer camp he knew for sure he just had to do it. “I’m 100% interested in the sports world, but with what NSLC was supposed to is kind of narrow down my view; maybe if I want to do journalism and broadcasting, or do I want to go into sports marketing […] but 100% I’m into sports.” — James Porter-Delgardo
NSLC stands for National Student Leadership Conference, and this particular summer camp they hosted focused on sports marketing, management, and other behind-the-scenes work that goes into keeping the sports industry running. The camp was supposed to be in upstate New York but was relocated down to Arlington, Virginia. The camp was structured so that James had talks with “clients”, created and worked out deals between different “brands”, and presented an agency to the other agencies at the camp. This simulated the real committees and experiences that James would have to go through when he entered the sports career field, and it did not disappoint. James was also able to attend games outside of the camp, including an Orioles game at Camden Yards and a D.C. United game at Audi Field. From these games, James said that he holds a memory of him and his friends “screaming at the opposition, and [they] got nasty looks from some of the home fans”, which he still laughs about to this day. James also enjoyed the fact that the age demographic of the camp was appealing because he got to interact with people his age who were as passionate about sports as he was.
It is obvious that James is and has been interested in pursuing a career in sports, but this camp solidified his plan on entering the sports career field. “There are always other options such as marketing,” he says, as most of the activities in the camp pertained to simulating the experience of joining a sports agency, but he’d “love to be a coach” or something else like that. From his experiences at the camp, James said he learned that if he didn’t go into a sports field (marketing, management, etc.) he wouldn’t be happy. He knows for sure what he wants to do because he loves it so much. He also says that even though the camp helped him learn more about sports marketing and management, the best part about this camp was that he could “slap this on his resume for college”.
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