Guest Speaker: Bob Pearson

Bob Pearson from Berry College spoke to our class about his job at Berry and gave us pointers about life and careers. He has been at Berry College for 29 years and is the athletic director and the department chair of kinesiology. He mentioned that every day is different for him on the job. Pearson teaches anywhere from 15 to 29 hours a week and advises students as well. When we first got there, he gave us three things that he called "gifts," and they were a bright green notecard, a whistle, and a paper holder. He was very personal with each of us and asked each student what sport they played. Bob then had the class read off one quote from the sheet of paper he gave us, and we had to interpret the quote and what it meant to us. I learned a lot from his speech because he taught us to always do the right thing even if it is the smallest of things.

Internships 11-15

The five internships I researched were an assistant professor/assistant director at Virginia Commonwealth University,  a physical education assistant professor at Los Rios Community College, the head softball coach at Los Rios Community College, and the assistant ticket manager at Mississippi State University. The internship I was most interested in out of these jobs was the head softball coach at Los Rios Community College because it also offers a job in physical education which are the two careers I want to seek when I graduate. They have had a winning program in the past, and I really think I could continue with the trend.

Guest Speaker: Bill Popp

Bill Popp is the Athletic Director and head baseball coach at Reinhardt University. He first went to West Georgia but finished up his Bachelor of Science degree at Kennesaw State University. After college, Popp was a volunteer assistant at Oglethorpe University and got lucky enough to become head coach there after the first year. Bill Popp was the first and only head baseball coach at Reinhardt. As a head coach, he informed us about Reinhardt's sport history and all the conferences it has been in. Reinhardt is part of the NAIA, which has 60,000 student athletes and 290 schools involved. Reinhardt was originally affiliated with a junior college and began in the GCAC conference. They then moved to the SSAC conference for seven years until they moved to the AAC conference this past year. Reinhardt has 15 total sports, 8 for women and 7 for men. As an athletic director, Bill Popp does a variety of activities. He develops a mission statement and sets goals with a goal report every year. He checks eligibility of all athletes of the school and developed a booster club. Popp helped get both the baseball and softball fields built, a new fitness center, and lights for baseball and softball. As far as his hours go, Popp says it depends on what time of year it is. We also discussed adding a football program at Reinhardt and how it would basically end up paying for itself. I really enjoyed having Bill Popp as a guest speaker and learned a lot from his presentation.