Jake Schwartz

Hello everyone! I hope you had a fantastic mother's day weekend. I spent mine volunteering at the University of Oklahoma Baseball series. While helping out the OU Marketing staff, I learned quite a bit about the flow of the game, through the music and sound effects.

Friday's game had been rained out, so we had a doubleheader on Saturday, starting at 2PM. Normally when I volunteer I just help out with the in-game promotions, whether it's throwing out t-shirts, picking out the Whataburger Fan of the Game, finding someone to finish a movie line, you know, the standard stuff. The first game went into extra innings, where OU beat Baylor in the 10th inning. Half way through the second game, I asked Jamaal, the Assistant Director of Marketing at OU who's in charge of baseball, this:

"Could you teach me how to do the music?" 

This weekend was the most nerve-racking and fearful weekend I've had since I moved to Norman in August. As you may know, I was born and raised in Southern California, the land of celebrities, traffic, and of course, earthquakes (Oklahoma is the land of turnpikes, trains, and tornados (copyright Jake Schwartz)). As a student of the California education system, the science behind earthquakes and how to prepare for them was a topic in science classes and mandatory assemblies from elementary through high school. Needless to say, the Richter Scale was of no use to me this weekend, as we were in the path of a tornado. 

Hello everyone, happy Friday! There's been kind of a running gag at the office that there are a ton of great movies that I have never seen. Since I saw Forrest Gump for the first time this past week, I want to make a list of some of the movies I absolutely need to see. 

1. Caddyshack

As a sports fan, this movie is an absolute must. Unfortunately, I have not gotten to see Bill Murray and Rodney Dangerfield play golf, yet. 

2. Easy Rider

My dad is a car nut, so I've seen some awesome movies like Bullitt and French Connection, but not this Peter Fonda/Jack Nicholson classic.

Happy Friday everyone!

It's always good to count your blessings. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity Zac and Tracie gave me here at Old Hat. This internship has exposed me to the working world of sports and graphic design, and ironically, my job is not necessarily focused on those two things. In fact, I challenge any of you to find an internship quite like mine. It's extaordinary that I get paid to do what I do.

While there is no typical day or week in my life now, you'll find that this week, I really had some fun.

Monday 1/30

Happy Friday everyone! As part of Tracie's Professional Development Book Club, I've been reading "Social BOOM" by Jeffrey Gitomer. I haven't finished yet, but so far he's made some great points about mastering social media. I want to take some time to post how I've been effective in the space. Enjoy!

3 DO's

Hi everyone! With threats of snow and consistent cold weather here in Oklahoma, (something I’m still getting used to) it’s clear that the holiday (or the generic term: winter) season is upon us. 

One of our marketing activities during these holidays has been the Old Hat 15 Days of Christmas (ironic that I came up with the name and I’m Jewish). The hashtag #OH15Days has taken off, a lot more than I expected it to, so I hope you all benefited from it. I’m not sure if anything like this has been done in the past, so it’s a little surreal to think about how influential it has been and could be. Outside of the tips from all of our staff, I’d like everyone to take away three things:

A big topic of discussion lately is whether college athletes should be paid. With all the exposure and revenue that the school gains from their games (mostly football and men’s basketball), those in favor of this say that the athletes themselves deserve a cut of the profits. While that is a fair and valid point, I am strongly against paying college athletes. I have many reasons for this: Inequalities between FBS and FCS schools and between revenue and non-revenue sports, the already shrinking budgets for athletics at many schools, and the multitude of benefits that athletes already get or have access to (catered meals, extra tutors, free clothing, opportunities for grants and loans, a FREE EDUCATION, etc). But, for this piece, I’m going to focus on my one main argument against paying college athletes: Pride and passion.

It’s been increasingly difficult to write my thoughts in a coherent fashion over the years. With my head over and under analyzing every random thing, including how to write this blog to introduce myself, it’s a wonder I don’t spend a ridiculous amount of money on Tylenol. (I like to insert my “comments” in parentheses, as you can tell)