91探花

Tate Field is one of the most important places on campus for senior Kylie Dobbins, a life-long soccer player who has continued to play throughout her last four years at Lees-91探花. After enduring two ACL tears during her collegiate career, however, Dobbins said she knew she would no longer be able to compete at the same level long-term.

“I’m a pretty realistic person, so I knew that after my time here—especially having had two ACL tears—I was not going to be involved in sports participation-wise. I wanted to stay involved somehow, and I’ve always been interested in how things are run. I want to be a behind-the-scenes person, so with that interest it makes me want to stay in sports so I can achieve those goals,” she said.

Motivated by the desire to get involved behind the scenes, Dobbins pursued a major in Sport Management and a minor in Marketing, with the goal of working in event programming and facilities management for a sporting venue or arena. In addition to the on-the-field experience she has gained as a student-athlete, Dobbins has honed her event planning and marketing skills through internships with the Avery County Chamber of Commerce and Beech Mountain Resort.

With the Avery County Chamber of Commerce, she assisted in marketing efforts by helping revitalize the organization’s website and reaching out to local member businesses to ensure their pages on the organization’s site were accurate and up to date. Here she also dipped her toe in her primary professional interest: event planning.

Through her internship at Beech Mountain, which she has maintained over the last four years, Dobbins was able to explore that interest more in depth and gain real-world experience in her future career that will be invaluable as she enters the workforce following graduation. She started in the ticket booth and has gotten more involved in the resort’s event planning and marketing with each new year.

“Last year I did basically all marketing and helped with events. There’s a concert every Friday and Saturday between December and March, so I helped with the concert setup, I would bring the band into the green room and get them anything they needed, I would help with the ticketing of the show. Marketing-wise, I would program stuff to Hootsuite and update the website,” she said. “This year, I transitioned into the event coordinator position. I’ve been doing the same thing with the concerts, just more involved. I contact the bands to make sure that they’re ready to go and have everything they need to get up here. I’ll meet them when they get here and help set up their green room and get them anything they need.”

Dobbins said her time at Beech Mountain Resort has been incredibly impactful both personally and professionally. Not only has she had the opportunity to make connections with other professionals in the field, but the experience has also helped her gain confidence and comfortability in the workplace, strengthened her problem-solving and communication skills, and influenced her to develop a better sense of time management.

Following graduation, Dobbins has already prepared for her next step: a Sports Entertainment Marketing Master’s program at the University of South Carolina. Further down the line she has dreams of one day working on the Super Bowl halftime show.

“There were other opportunities I did at this school besides just being an athlete, which is something really important that people don’t always realize when they come in as a freshman. ‘I made it here to play soccer,’ but it’s not going to be your whole life after you graduate,” Dobbins said. “I’ve just learned a lot. I didn’t think I would learn this much from one job, but it just helps me grow my resume and have these experiences that I don’t think I would have if I didn’t go to school here.”