Leadership lived: Senior helps boost school spirit as an intern for UIS Athletics

 
Nick Reynolds is helping to boost school spirit as a marketing and engagement intern for the University of Illinois Springfield Athletics Department. In that role, he promotes athletic events on social media and serves as a host for promotions during games.

“I’ve always been a big like get everyone to the game and pump them up type of guy,” he said. “In high school, I was the Blue Crew leader for our fan section and so that’s what I’m kind of trying to do here.”

Reynolds, a management major from Jerseyville, Illinois, says he’s also learning important business lessons from his UIS Athletics internship. For example, he helped to set up a $600 half-court basketball shot contest promotion.

On campus, Reynolds also co-founded the first Jewish student organization and has completed several internships in various campus departments.

“You can only learn so much in the classroom and UIS is Leadership lived because you can just go out and do it,” he said. “It’s really helped me become a leader and helped with business expertise and skills.”

Following graduation from UIS, Reynolds plans to become an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He’s headed straight to boot camp following graduation in May.

“I now know that after the military, I will probably want to go into something like Sports Management,” he said. “I think being an athletic director or something like that would be really cool.”

Reynolds, who is graduating from UIS with his bachelor’s degree in only three years, says he’s glad he came to Springfield.

“It’s a smaller school, so I’ve just been able to fly through my degree in three years because of the small class sizes and because of great professors who know your name,” he said.