Sports
management plays well at CSULB
By
Patrick Creaven
Online Forty-Niner
Staff Writer
After receiving her teaching credential and becoming a math teacher at Marshall
Middle School in Long Beach, it didn’t take long for Stacy Embretson,
33, to realize she couldn’t spend the rest of her life teaching fractions
and probability to young teenagers.
Embretson needed a career change. So, two years ago, she visited Cal State
Long Beach to listen to a sport management informational meeting.
“
I listened to what the program was all about, and I was sold right there. It
was exactly what I wanted to do,” Embretson said.
This week, Embretson, a straight-A student, will receive her master’s
degree in sport management from CSULB. She is still a math teacher, but after
receiving a degree from one of the few master’s sport management programs
on the West Coast she isn’t planning on teaching for much longer.
Sport management is a growing industry nationwide, and with professional baseball,
basketball, hockey, soccer and a multitude of collegiate athletic programs
in the Los Angeles area, Southern California is the epicenter of the profession.
According to the CSULB Sport Management Information Packet, the master’s
program is “designed to prepare individuals for careers in the management
(and administration) of professional, collegiate, scholastic, international
and community sport.”
Diane Higgs, the sport management program manager, has put emphasis on internships,
requiring students to have three internships during the 18-month program.
“
We want our students to go out in the field and to be exposed to different
things,” Higgs said. “It is a learning experience and allows students
to have a better idea of what they want to do when they graduate.”
Higgs said the students in her program don’t have a problem finding a
job once they graduate because employers are looking for people who have a
master’s degree in sport management.
Unlike most of her classmates, Embretson isn’t looking to get involved
in professional or collegiate sports management. Instead, she wants to manage
events, and has already helped coordinate the Long Beach Marathon during one
of her internships.
“
I’m excited to be graduating, which I didn’t feel when I got my
degree in education,” Embretson said. “I have found so much positive
energy [at the Sports Management Department] and I know this is what I want
to do with my life.”
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