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Blog 8-Final Reflection

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As this project has come to an end, I have experienced and learned a lot more than I initially thought I would. Before the project, I had no idea what to expect, but I can confidently say that I was pleasantly surprised by this experience. As written in blog 1, my inspiration for this project was to, as a Browns fan, see the inner workings of the Browns organization, learn how the team impacts the community, and learn how I can become more active in the community to make an impact. I set these goals because, although I am not going into sports as a career, I have been a lifelong Browns fan, and I wanted to learn more about the organization. I would say that these expectations and goals were not only met but exceeded. Through the three parts of my internship, learning, events, and research, I was able to experience many things, and expand my understanding of the Browns organization and the Northeast Ohio community. This was a great internship where always felt engaged. Instead of obse...
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Blog 7-OTA event

As Organized Team Activities (OTAs) began, not only did I get to see some players around the Berea facility, I also helped run an event during OTAs. While OTAs are not open to the public, the Browns invite small groups of people from partner organizations to come watch OTAs, meet players, and have a great time at the Berea Facility on an offseason day. This is a unique experience, as practices are closed to the public until July/August training camp. The organization that came last week to see OTAs was the Adapted Football League. For the past 13 years the Adapted Football League has helped children and adults with disabilities have the opportunity to play in organized flag football games against other teams while being safe, and having fun. It was great to see people from this partner organization as I had seen this organization in my side research project for this internship (more information about this side project in Blog 4). In the morning before the people arrived for the event, ...
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Blog 6-Berea Details

While many people are familiar with Cleveland Browns Stadium (formerly First Energy Stadium) as a place of operations for the Browns, some people do not know about the CrossCountry Mortgage Campus in Berea. About a week into my internship, I got to go the Berea campus for the first time. This was a quick trip to the storage room as discussed in a different post. Throughout the course of the internship, I have made trips to Berea, as well doing some work there. I was given a tour of the facility during my second time at the facility. During the tour, I got to see the mail room, where all the shipping and mail is taken care of. This was interesting, and I realized that the browns ship more items than I originally thought. I also got to see the security room. Since this facility is filled with high profile people including ownership, players, coaches, and executives, there are many security features that the public may not know about. There are dozens of cameras throughout the building, a...
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Blog 5-One Love Event

Another major event that I helped with was a partnered event between the Browns and One Love. This event took place in the browns stadium. This was a free event for high school football coaches and players in Cleveland and its surrounding areas. The basis of this event was healthy relationships, domestic violence, and how to help others with these types of issues. Hannah Lee, one of my mentors for the project, organized this event. For this event, I first helped set up the event along with Zach Blase, one of the people I have worked with during this internship. We set up tables with pens and lanyards for attendees; we brought up decorations including standing browns signs, and helped with other tasks in turning this room into an area suitable for a seminar type of event. Setting up for this event also involved my first trip to the Browns CrossCountry Mortgage Campus in Berea. Zach and I went there to look for extra lanyards in the storage warehouse for the event (more details about Ber...
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Blog 4-Progress on my side project

This internship with the Cleveland Browns involves two parts for me. These include working on events, and an individual project about youth football in other organizations. Last week, I started my research project that will span the entire internship. For this project, I first had to learn about the programs within the Browns organization. These programs fall into categories that include, player development, non-traditional growth and inclusion, youth/High school football, coach support, player support, officials support, and players as ambassadors. Big programs the browns have that caught my eye are rookie tackle (transition from flag to tackle football), high school girls flag football (Hawken has had this for the last two years), adaptive football league (flag football league for kids and adults with disabilities), parents clinic (helping parents understand more about youth football, and impacts on children), coach of the week (10 high school coaches honored throughout the season an...
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Blog 3-My First community outreach event

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My first community outreach event with the browns organization was great.  For this event, the Browns organization hosted a kid’s football fun day for students at Maple Heights middle school. The purpose of this event was to emphasize the importance of staying in school, and committing to education from a young age. Around 30 students with the highest school attendance and performance were chosen for this event by the principal to participate in this event. The principal emphasized to the volunteers and members of the Browns organization the importance of rewarding accomplishments in school in order to motivate children to continue their academic excellence. At this event, Cleveland Browns Linebacker #5 Anthony Walker made an appearance, and had fun with the kids. Before the event, he discussed what school meant to him. While football was important to him, he felt that school was just as, if not more important for him, because it allowed him to explore his curiosity, learn discipli...
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Blog 2-Stadium tour

 On my first day working with the Browns organization, I got an extensive tour of Cleveland Browns Stadium. After parking my car, I was taken up to the press box, which is currently being used for offices as the Berea facility is under construction. It was interesting to see people working on various things for the team, including social media, graphic design, tickets for fans, scheduling, and more. After this, I got to see the room where the video board is operated during game day. This room consisted of around 20 to 25 workstations, each responsible for a different aspect of the stadium. Everything including the sound in the stadium, the jumbotron, scoreboard, and the PA system during games. Each of these people work cohesively in order to create a smooth and fun game day experience for the fans. Next I got to go to the ground level. Here, I got to see the field, the locker room entrances, and the garage under the stadium. On the field, the grass had recently been regrown after a...
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