Ever since Casey McGaw was a child her life has revolved around baseball. Some of her earliest memories consist of watching her father play in his men’s recreational league in a matching McGaw jersey her parents had made for her. She even learned how to keep a scorebook at the age of ten.
When the opportunity arose to attend Major League Baseball’s winter meetings with the Pittsburgh Center for Sports Media and Marketing she had to take it. After applying and interviewing with the center’s directors she was chosen as one of six students to make the trip to the meetings in Nashville.
“It was hands down one of the craziest but best experiences of my life,” says McGaw.
McGaw says her hope in attending the meetings was to network and help get her career started in baseball. What she didn’t expect was to land interviews with ten different minor league teams. However the center’s Graduate Assistant Kelsey Veydt was not surprised by McGaw’s success at all. “Casey was willing to put herself out there and applied for any position she knew she would not only excel in but also learn, so I wasn’t surprised by the amount of interviews she landed.” says Veydt.
McGaw spoke to teams from all over the country including the Augusta GreenJackets and the Tri-City ValleyCats, the latter of which she would accept a ticket office internship with for this summer in New York.
“It’s really going to help me a lot in learning the basis of the industry and getting my foot in the door,” says McGaw.
A native of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, McGaw says she looked at schools in Philadelphia before touring Point Park. She immediately fell in love with the city of Pittsburgh and liked how involved Point Park students were with their majors. But the biggest reason she came here was for the Sports, Arts, and Entertainment Management program as it focuses solely on the business side of both the sports and music industries.
McGaw says that the SAEM program has really given her a step up in the industry by having her get involved in the industry right off the bat with job shadowing and job fairs. She also cites getting involved with organizations such as the Center for Sports Media and Marketing as being the biggest help. “They’ve really introduced us to some great industry professionals, and provided some really cool opportunities such as the baseball winter meetings” says McGaw.
While at the winter meetings McGaw was able to not only apply for summer internships, but listen to seminars and network with industry professionals. She cites her favorite panel as the “Women in Baseball” because she says it’s refreshing to listen to real women talk about their experiences in the industry. Yet her favorite moment of all actually came after the meetings had concluded on the first day.
McGaw says that it was common for many of the executives to hang out at a restaurant in the city, so a few of the students went down to network. “We put ourselves out there, and because of that had great conversations and made good connections,” says Josh Croup, another student who attended the winter meetings.
At the restaurant McGaw was able to connect with an executive from the San Antonio Missions and set up an interview for the next day. The meeting was a huge success, and they offered her an internship. Unfortunately she was unable to accept it as they wanted someone to start in January, but they told her to stay in contact as they’d love to have her one day. “I fell in love with that organization, the people, and I’d love to work for them one day when I am able,” says McGaw.
Despite this McGaw is excited for her internship with the ValleyCats, and is ready to begin her career in baseball. In the near future she hopes to obtain more internships in the sales or marketing departments of baseball teams and is aiming to obtain an entry-level sales position after graduation. Her long-term goals include working her way into upper management of a team and one day being the General Manager of a minor league baseball team. “There aren’t a ton of women GMs, but I know I can do the job as well as any man,” says McGaw.