Student Story

My experience working with Florida Citrus Sports at Camping World Stadium was nothing short of amazing.”

Tyler Johnson is a senior Sports Management major with a minor in Business Administration. He is also a member of the Catawba Track and Field team, and social Chair for the Black Student Union.

Recently, Tyler had an exciting internship experience with Florida Citrus Sports, a not-for-profit event management organization, at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida.

Tyler discovered this internship by connecting with Florida Citrus Sports team member Chrissy Elliot, an Alum of Lenoir-Rhyne University located in his hometown of Conover, NC. Elliot is the Senior Vice President of Event Operations at Florida Citrus Sports and introduced Tyler to the opportunity of working in Event Operations where he would be contributing to the Pop-Tart and Cheez-It Bowl games.

This hands-on work involved many behind-the-scenes tasks, including heavy lifting and facilities type jobs to ensure the events would run smoothly. He was primarily responsible for player gifts and sorting memorabilia by team, working fan fest, and helping wherever else needed. Though the workdays would often be 12 plus hours, Tyler feels that the experience he gained from this internship was well worth it.

He said, “My experience working with Florida Citrus Sports at Camping World Stadium was nothing short of amazing. I worked as an Event Operations intern. That allowed me to see behind the scenes of how everything is run leading up to the events. Without the Event Operations team, the event would not be able to happen and run as smoothly as you see it. Event Operations is a lot of hands on and “dirty” work and there are so many different roles that people have from the Marketing team down to ticket operations. This was a job that kept you busy for up to twelve hours a day as there was always something that needed to be done leading up to the Pop Tart and Cheez-It Bowl Games.”

This internship initially struck his interest as something which would be beneficial to his future career prospects, though it ended up teaching him what field he would prefer to aim toward. A great value of internships is that they provide the opportunity to work in a potential career field and, in a sense, test out the waters.  

For Tyler, this is exactly what this internship did for him. It taught him that Event Operations might not be the field for him, but there were still many valuable skills he took away from this experience, such as maintaining a good attitude, and being authentic to yourself, as everyone has something unique to offer the team. It is important to him to put in work when selecting an internship position, as the company/team you work for makes a big difference.

He said, “This internship taught me that I still want to work in sports. I would consider Event Operations, but I have also always had an interest in Social Media Marketing. My experience with working with Event Operations was great, but I am still leaning more toward wanting to work in Marketing.”

His team at Florida Citrus Sports felt like a family and made him excited to go to work every day. Despite the hard work, he would do it all again in a heartbeat, if not for the skills and experience, then for the great people he got to meet.

Currently, Tyler is a Marketing and Fan Engagement Intern here at Catawba which is something he has always been interested in.

“I find college athletics and their teams' social media platforms very interesting. I like seeing how the marketing and media team work together and use their creativity to market their athletes,” he said.