Volleyball Job Shadow

By: Ryan Thomas

I had the unique opportunity to job shadow John Martin, JMUs assistant athletic director of communication.  The original shadow was supposed to be with Bryan Hansen a communication associate, but when he was unavailable to attend the game, Martin took his place.  I met John about 45 minutes prior to the start of the woman’s volleyball game on Friday, October 12, and found my place behind the scorer’s desk.  John asked that I stay behind him and the other employees to simply observe what goes on during play.  He then gave me a chance to wear an extra headset in order to listen to the team during their normal game conversation, and this was quite entertaining.  Finally once the game finished up, he proceeded to interview head coach Lauren Stienbrecher.  The dukes won in three sets over the Delaware Blue Hens. During a brief break between sets, I asked John what his least favorite part about the job was, and he answered that the fast paced scoring and stat keeping in volleyball can be overwhelming, but when you have a good team working with you it eases some of the tension.  I also asked what was his favorite sport at JMU was to work with, and simply stated, football. I learned that volleyball is a fast paced sport as far as scoring and stat keeping goes, and that it is very important to pay close attention to the game progression.  I learned that the scoring desk workers do more than push buttons for the scoreboard.  They have an important role in team stats, social media updates, and game flow.  They must work just as hard as the players to give both teams needed information about team statistics.  The only thing I would do differently would be to video the games from the score desk.  I think this would help diffuse and discrepancies over calls, or statistics, by having a courtside perspective. I think overall I liked the job shadow, and the experience I gained from watching a game from behind the scorer’s table.  I liked the conversations I had with John, because he seemed very knowledgeable about the job.  I think getting into some sort of profession like this could be a possibility as I move into the working world, but I would be more interested in following other sports.