Started From The Bottom...

And now we're here!!

Today is the last day of school at UAlbany and concludes my first school year as a "professional" (very loose term) staff.

Wow. One year down.

Holy moly, how in the world did that happen?? Wasn't it like, just yesterday that I was crying on my way to work every day because I didn't want to respond to more hate emails/tweets and about why I'm making changes for the better but no one else seemed to think so and I was so cripplingly lonely that I'd go out and work 9am to 9pm because I didn't have anything else to do and that I felt like a failure because our numbers weren't up like I hoped and club paperwork was like running myself into the ground because it was a brand new system and no one, I mean not even the chic who audited us knew how or why or even WHAT THE HECK we should be doing when it came to clubs...(that was a fun day).

But guess what?! I made it! Let me correct myself, WE made it. Myself, my GA, my Program Assistant (that man is a god-send because he can whip out a budget on excel faster than you can say "I need you to make a new spreadsheet, please".) and all of our new supervisors, officials, club sport officers and obvi, the participants.

And we did a freaking awesome job.

Our final numbers were way up too! We had the biggest class of freshman ever play IM's which hopefully means we have them for all 4 years (or more). We had less total games (due to 4 week seasons and not 10 week seasons) but lots of people played 2 or more sports. We almost doubled the number of girl participants (yay! girl power! girls run the world!). We had official trainings and more trainings and evals and then sent 1 official to a regional tournament for the first time EVER in UAlbany history of IM's.

And on the club sport side...one club cough*icehockey*cough almost was given the boot (some hazing/underage drinking/death threats from one player to others.....what a great first month on the job) BUT was given a gracious second chance and flipping made the most of it. We found a coach, did a ton fundraising and are definitely in a way better position going into the next year.

I fought for and won several appeals to the Student Government (where all the clubs get their $$$) for various clubs to get additional funding for a total of about $25,000.00. Boom, my MBA coming at ya real hard there. But all that time and energy spent in the  Student Gov. Office was absolutely worth it because when we went for budgets this year, instead of being cut like we had been warned Club Sports came away with actually more money overall. Not 1, not 2, but 6 of the clubs made it to National Tournaments and 10 made it to at least a post season. Not bad for only 23 total clubs.

Not bad for year #1

There were a lot of downs too. I had to fire some employees. Good employees and some not so good employees too. I had to hold my ground on my policies and tell a full team of seniors sorry, you broke the rules, you don't get into playoffs, and it was rough because I remember my senior year and how I loved playing and to stop on a technicality would have SUCKED. Lots of mistakes too. Simple mistakes, and big mistakes, I did them all. No mistake was left unmade.

I had pretty good come to Jesus moments with my GA too. He's young and excited but very very inexperienced. Which is ok, I'm still learning on how to be a mentor so that changes for him. We aren't there yet. Not even close. But we survived and came out relatively unscathed.

Team work makes the dream work

All of these little things build up to one big thing that I have once again, learned time and time again. Anything is possible if you care. Start caring about other people, actually give a crap. No, really, put in some effort because you genuinely want to and people, even students, will GENUINELY care about you back. Care about the secretary who makes sure your check requests get turned in on time. Care about the janitor that vacuums the crumbs under your desk. Learn the names and the majors of your student employees so when you ask how their midterms are going and if they would like to take off early to go study and that you got this last hour of Flag Football, they smile and say thank you but then work 10x harder because they want to, not because they have to. Or just have an open door and let them come to you and vent and be a good listener.

My boss really was the one who showed me that. I have had some great bosses and mentors. But Greg, as we'll call him, does this for me. I had a lot of problems handed to me this year outside of work too. I was diagnosed with an aggressive case of PCOS shortly upon arriving and I was in and out of the doctor's office and getting blood drawn every 3 weeks from November to March and he was extremely understanding through it all. He even let me break down in his office because I had just found out from a phone call from my doctor and was rattled and worried and in shock. He just sat there and listened and gave me a tissue and told me that I needed to get on the University's insurance program for employees ASAP because it's an amazing benefit (I'm only 24 so was still on my parents' insurance) and it would save me and my parents a lot of money. And that I didn't have to take vacation time for the days I had to spend hours in the blood lab waiting for different medicines and hormones to go through my system before taking more blood for more tests or getting sent all over the city for this specialist and that pharmacy, etc. etc.
And then once I finally got good news from my doctor that after 5 months of taking 7 different pills a day, I'm on the mend, a dear family friend, more like a grandfather than a friend, passed away. It was right before we all left for the conferences of all conferences in Florida. But he told me that I could leave and try to get home and to not worry about the hundreds and hundreds of dollars that would be wasted by me not attending the conference (no refunds). Not many bosses would have been so considerate, especially for someone who isn't even blood related. I chose to not go because of several reasons but the notion my boss was completely ok with whatever decision I made was all that mattered.
And he's my number one supporter (after my mom) for my marathon. He thinks it's a pretty great thing to be doing and asks me everyday if I ran, how I'm feeling, how he's going to drive next to me and shout along the full 20 miles I'm supposedly running (not there yet in my training). But it definitely helps having someone to hold you accountable because I can't lie to him and say "oh yeah, I ran" when I didn't as he would totally know and probably make me go out and run on the spot.

Thanks boss. You're the real MVP.

Claps to you, Greg.

While I am happy the year is over and excited for things to slow down just a tad bit, I am going to miss my students. We had a great end of the year banquet for all the Campus Rec student staff. It wasn't mandatory to go, but free food and awards were to be given out. I had over half of all my staff show up. I'm taking it as they really wanted to come because they like their job and not just for the free food. And we had our own little IM/Club Sport party and we gave out silly paper plate awards, ate pizza (on me) and played kickball. I got out there and played (duh. I'm not above playing with my staff) and we picked teams like you do on the play ground and I wasn't picked last, but I think that's because they wanted to keep their job haha. And most of them plan on coming back and working in the Fall. Which is great, as that's the point of building a program. Finding kids who'll stick around and help you build it further.

I am losing a few good seniors though, who I'll miss a lot. They really bought into the change and dove head first into the different policies, rules and duties I threw at them, and had they not, I can honestly say that our program would not be nearly as successful as it is and will be.

The theme for this year was try not to hold on what is gone, do right what is wrong and just gotta keep on keeping on. Yes, I stole this from a song but it's very fitting. So in typical Marissa fashion, I'll leave it here for now. Thanks for reading. :)

For those of you who thought it's from Joe Dirt...sure. Go with that.

To be continued.