A Summer to Remember

CROSSING THE POND TO THE UK

After a long, busy and informative three days at NACMA, it was June 31st, the day we had all been waiting for - The day we "crossed the pond" over the England! After months of preparations, planning and anticipation, the day was finally here. We had an early morning leaving Dallas and heading out in our business clothes and luggage galore and headed out to three different meetings that morning around Dallas before heading out to the airport. That morning we made 3 valuable stops to Anthony Travel, Learfield Sports, and Conference USA. First stop, Anthony Travel. Anthony Travel deals with transportation and accommodations for collegiate sports teams and fans when it comes to sports events. It was a side of sports I never thought about before until hearing it that morning. It makes sense that there is a travel agency for teams who need mass amounts of transportation and accommodations when traveling for their games. It was very interesting to see another side to the sports industry I have never thought about before. Second stop, Learfield Sports. Learfield Sports is a marketing agency that creates customized campaigns, utilizing the multimedia assists of their collegiate partners to meet their marketing objectives (from the Learfield website). It was an amazing office that was set up to look like an ESPN Zone with locker rooms in the lobby and game scores scrolling over the front desk. First impression really means a lot! Very impressive. We heard from Mr. Learfield himself and two of his interns who were in our shoes not long ago. It was interesting to hear about the marketing and sponsoring side of sports. After a quick lunch in their offices (15 minutes), it was onto the bus and onto the next meeting at Conference USA. Although it is a smaller conference, it is nonetheless so cool to be apart of. The people we met at their offices were friendly, wise and helpful for all of our questions. After an office tour, free t-shirts and getting on their Instagram page, we cleared out and headed for the airport!

We arrived at DFW (Dallas-Forth-Worth), two hours before our flight and rushed through security as fast as we could! We got to the gate early enough to rest up and change out of our business clothes into our plane clothes and we started to board. While most of our crew all sat together in coach, I was seated in the front row of coach with a nice, big from row view of first class along with two other guys on our trip, Brett and Justin. After attempting to re-enact the airplane scene from Bridesmaids, focusing on how they shouldn't place a screen between the two classes because it is "civil rights", we got over our jealous of the reclining seats, personal iPads and champagne and dozed off to a camaraderie/entire plane viewing of The Vow and Young Elizabeth (which let me tell you, watching that next to two college boys who were VERY into the movie, was the funniest thing I've every experienced).

Finally after 9 hours of flying, we finally heard those amazing words from our Captain telling us to return to our seats and prepare for landing. Those are the kind of words that make you fill up with so much happiness - the only kind of happiness that can be attained after tossing and turning in the fetal position, on a plane where you are designated a personal grand total space of a 1 square foot radius for 9 long hours. I could not be happier to land in England and let the good times roll!

Not short after landing, we encountered a very long line at customs where we were all so delirious we were laughing non-stop trying to get internet so we could see how the NBA draft went. We thought "Oh we could just ask someone" but then we remembered we were in England, not the US, and if it's not about soccer (football), then don't ask. Once we finished going through customs, we boarded out charter bus and did the hour and 45 minute drive to Coventry. Such a beautiful country side on the drive up, but quickly after loading up, as excepted, everyone on the bus was passed out asleep.

When we finally got to Coventry and checked in at the Premier Inn, we took a walk around the city to keep ourselves away to resist the jet lag. The weather was.... well it was the UK. It was in the 60's and drizzling enough where I was wearing my hood around but not enough for an umbrella. About 10 of us went on a walk around town and went to the Oldest Pub in Coventry called The Old Windmill. We could tell it was so old because one of our guys Robbie, who is well around 6'4'', had to duck going through every doorway and his head basically touched the ceiling walking around! But we had a great time walking around and getting acquainted with the town. We walked through the university a bit to see where we'd be studying and the campus is pretty and right in the heart of the town. When my roommate, Leyla, and I got back from walking around we went up to our room to freshen up. Everyone was talking about their first night out in Coventry and in the UK but we were just TOO TIRED. I had been up over 30 hours from my lack of sleep on the plane and after i showered around 6:30pm my roommate and I just passed out and didn't wake up until 8:30am!! Apparently we missed a fun night out on the town, but I'm glad we stayed in because I was on UK time immediately from the get go and that is something that I do not regret doing!

The next morning, we had our first day of class and let me tell ya, class was rough. Everyone was very tired from their night out the night before (except for the 5 of us that stayed in) and it was obvious the crew was very jet lagged and wasn't going out for round two that evening. We are taking two classes in Coventry here from our Eller teacher's at the Uni here in Coventry. We are taking MGMT 359 Sports Public Relations and Promotions from our great teacher Jim McLean and we're taking MGMT 3(something) International Sports Business and Enterprise from our other teacher Irishman, Dan Wickman. Class so far is very interesting because we are finally being able to take classes about things that interest us and we're in a group with other people on our level of interest. We debate idea everything from "what classifies something a sport?" or "what is the definition of a sport?" or "what is the different between a sport and a skill?". We debated the topic of whether activities such as Poker, Darts or Hurling are considered sports. What must something be to be considered a sport? May seem like an easy question but every activity and skill can contradict your definition and you wouldn't believe how long we spent discussing these types of topics. We also discussed how the IOC (International Olympic Committee) goes about choosing locations for the olympics; economic benefits, job employment, tourism benefits. it is really interesting stuff.... makes me actually like school when it's finally something you're interested in.

It's been a crazy few days but it's been a fun time all in all. I've learned a lot of British Slang as well. One of the guys on staff here at the hotel, who is awesome/we love, printed out a list for us with the definitions and I'm almost fluent in British slang!

Some words I've learned:

Pavement Pizza = throwing up on the side walk

Sweet Fanny Adams! = use when you are shocked/surprised

What are you on about? = what are you talking about?

Stop spittin' bubbles = stop talking nonsense

Winde your neck in mate = calm down mate

Biscuits = Cookies

Crisps = Chips

Chips = Fries

(I have learned MANY others but let's just say it's not appropriate to share on my blog.... thanks to the 20 year old boys that taught us these words...)

Read my next post where I'll write all about our trip to Henley for the Royal Regatta!!