Internships are critical to a student's education and often provide entry into the industry. Warsaw students work for sports companies across the nation. Many Northwestern-based companies such as Nike, adidas, the Seattle Seahawks, Baden, Peter Jacobsen Productions, and the Portland Trail Blazers are eager participants in Oregon's internship program.

If you believe what Alice Cooper sang in the rock anthem "School's Out For Summer," you've enrolled in the wrong M.B.A. program! For Warsaw Sports Marketing Center M.B.A.s, the summer is an opportunity to apply the business skills learned during the first year of study.

"It is up to you to develop an idea for an internship and then the Warsaw Center helps you make it happen," said Andy Koper, a Warsaw graduate from Cincinnati, Ohio, with a B.S. in sports administration from the University of Dayton. "The program helps you open doors in the industry and then it's your job to make the most of the opportunity."

For Koper the door of opportunity swung open at adidas in Portland where he spent a summer in the marketing and public relations department learning more about the company's involvement with team sports, men's basketball and the Women's World Cup. Now Koper is working for the NBA's Global Merchandising Group in New York.

As an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, Camille Ellison had an internship with the San Francisco 49ers. After graduation she worked in sales and marketing at Oracle. With a year under her belt at Oregon, she headed to New York City for an internship at NFL properties.

"I worked on developing sponsorship packages, observing how they are presented and learning about maintaining good business relationships with the sponsors," said Ellison. "I rotated through the NFL's marketing groups and got a first-hand look at the league's business." Now Camille works for Federal Express.