50 women who have made a positive difference to me - Sandy Genelius

2022 - On the?50th?anniversary of Title IX, I have been and will continue to shine?a?light on?50?women who have been amazing teachers, thereby affecting my?sports?career as well as the careers of other?women and men in sport.?

Sandy?Genelius: Has the sports industry screened out amazing talent??

Everyone knows the story of Bill Gates, Harvard dropout whose genius led him to found Microsoft.? Many know that the Leiweke brothers, Tim, CEO of Oak View Group, and Tod, CEO of the NHL Seattle Kraken, are similarly non-degreed. Yet many sports team job descriptions have historically required candidates for even the lowest level hourly-paid ticket sales jobs to have a bachelor's degree.??Has the industry been overlooking amazing non-degreed talent??

Sandy?Genelius?was my administrative assistant at IMG.?She had a darling, adventuresome and energetic personality.??Sandy?had worked at a local radio station?and was majoring in communications,?but hadn’t finished her college degree when we hired her.??

My role was helping to run the operations and sales of the Carte Blanche Tennis Legends Tour, the Canadian Club Tennis Tour with Charlton Heston, and the Women’s Professional Racquetball Tour.?While we had Alan Taylor’s PR firm helping with the publicity for these tours, our account manager was mostly providing onsite PR management.?Besides event operations and sponsor relations, I had to build the publicity packets, send out the press releases and keep track of the tour schedule, player statistics, and standings. I delegated most of that PR responsibility to?Sandy.

Sandy?became so good at writing and media relations, that she was promoted to work with Stephanie Tolleson who moved to IMG Cleveland to run point with our Toyota Sponsorship on the WTA Tour.??Sandy?continued to work full-time,?finished college,?and moved onto a couple of other PR sports roles?before landing?at CBS, where she worked for 20 years, first in CBS Sports and culminating in?a 14-year run as the Vice President of Communications?for?CBS News.??Following five years as a corporate communications VP at Sony,?Sandy?is now Chief Communications Officer at Amherst College.?

I’ve often wondered as I’ve read job description after job description requiring bachelor's degrees for sports jobs whether we may be screening out the next?Sandy, Tim, or Tod.?These three slipped through the education screen … but how many other?Sandys without a college degree have we missed?

TeamWork Online is the leading hiring platform and talent community in sports and entertainment. Our mission is to connect talented people with the right employers.??If your career has been positively affected by one of the women, please share your comments.