I’ve been working at The Worldwide Leader in Sports for a little over a week now and I’m loving every second of it.  I’ve been given two titles. Depending on who’s asking I am either a “Digital Media Integration Specialist” or an “Interactive Games Intern”. My group gets to work with some awesome companies like EA Sports and Microsoft as well as numerous other groups at the company and I’ve been getting priceless experience. My boss and I are the only ones that work in Bristol, CT and the rest of the team works out of NYC. I’ll be making the trip to New York to work out of the offices there for a couple days this week.

This internship really is the perfect thing for me. It combines my major (Marketing), with a hobby of mine (Video games), with my passion (Sports).  Dream Job.

June 3rd was my first day and I wanted to make a good impression. I got to work a early only to realize that it would probably not be the best idea to start working on what my boss had recommended. I was supposed to be playing Facebook games and games on ESPN.com/arcade to get familiarized with what the team was working on.  I started thinking about it and decided to just check out ESPN.com instead of play games. I’m trying to impress people here and showing up early to play Facebook games doesn’t seem like it would be a great way to show you’re a hard worker…

Another reason I didn’t want to play games ASAP was because of this clip from the movie Rocketman.

I’ve been working on a number of projects including the ESPN Arcade Facebook and Twitter pages. There’s something awesome going on here all the time.  The World Cup is obviously a HUGE deal here at ESPN. The A Team was on campus on Friday so Liam Neeson and Rampage Jackson were out on the basketball court taking pictures in front of the A Team van.  Jared Dudley was on campus for a couple days last week and Carlos Boozer also stopped by.

The living arrangements are perfect. They put us up in townhouses in downtown Hartford.  I basically leave my bedroom for work around 8 and then don’t go back until right before bed.  There are around 40 ESPN interns in the same complex and we’re always hanging out in someone’s living room playing the new FIFA World Cup video game, watching the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup finals, botched perfect games, etc…Outside of playing college basketball at the best university in the world, this is the coolest thing I’ve been a part of.

Speaking of basketball, my boss is Mike Bucklin, a former UGA bball player and brother of the legendary Matt Bucklin. He organizes a pretty competitive pickup game that goes on 3 nights a week and I’ve been lifting weights at a fitness center in downtown Hartford as well as the fitness center on campus at ESPN. The first weekend we were in Hartford a group of interns and I went on an excursion to find a basketball court to hoop on.  We rolled up 15 deep in one of the rougher areas of Hartford.  You should have seen the look on our opponents faces.  My team ended up going 3-1 with a fluke loss.

Time to get back to work. Check back in the next couple days for another update.