My Name is Jessica Jackel. I am from Worthington Ohio, (columbus), and a senior majoring in Sport Management. After graduation I plan working for an agency or marketing firm down in Charlotte, N.C. Not too sure what I want to do, but I think business development sounds pretty cool to me right now.
I have been involved with sports my whole life. I started out playing volleyball then later my I became involved in cross country and lacrosse. I continued to play lacrosse as a club member at BGSU, and I started coaching at Perrysburg High School. I was their JV coach my freshman year, and then became head varsity my sophomore and junior year. This year, I decided to call it quits due to the time commitment.
I love the industry and I guess that's what made me switch from pre med my freshman year to sport management. I was never a huge ESPN viewer or kept up to date with stats of my favorite teams, however, I found a passion with the business side of things and that is what I am looking forward to after graduation.
If I were to pick a male and female athlete that I could watch play, they would have to be Michael Phelps and Serena Williams. I became a fan of swimming events due to my best friends brother who swam and played water polo competitively. We would travel all over the state to watch his matches and meets due to the fact that the teams he was on always made it to states. So I found excitement and interest in a sport that I have never participated in competitively, and that's why I think it would be cool to watch an athlete such as Phelps to dominate in the water. The same type of story goes for my fondness of Tennis. One of my best friends in high school played tennis, so when I would go over to her house, we were only allowed to watch tennis if we had the TV on. Instead of being bored from not understanding the game, Abby taught me how it was played and all of the rules. Soon after I was rooting for her favorite players and found a new love for the sport. Being able to watch Serena would be incredible. After watching her play against Venus at Wimbledon, I can only imagine what it would be like to watch them live.
I am excited for this class, I am eager to discuss the roles that gender plays in sport. I believe that there are so many stereotypes in what is accepted and expected of male and females athletes within their respected sports. I believe it has a huge role in the evolution of sport and why they are, the way they are today. The discussion that was brought up of transgender athletes really sparked my interest because most sports divide male and female athletics based on biological makeup. so now that people are changing their makeup based on gender preferences, I believe will make it difficult for them to be accepted anywhere. Particularly, I am eager to see the further discussions that will come up about this topic.
