Sitting in a major league dugout, meeting ballplayers, and having lunch with the president of the Seattle Mariners as one of the Mariners’ interns this summer was not what junior Melissa Navarro envisioned when she started applying for internships last fall.

“I began looking for summer internships in August and September and after not finding anything, I figured, why not work for the Mariners? I’ve always been a big fan, so I thought it would be a great idea to work for them,” said Navarro, a politics major.

As a sales intern, Navarro contributed sales ideas and assisted account executives at the Mariners’ Safeco Field in Seattle.

“When I first applied for the job, I thought you had to be a business or marketing major, but that’s not the case. I was the only person who came from a small school like Whitman. What they really look for, though, are people who have the professionalism and the critical thinking that we learn here at Whitman,” Navarro said.

Navarro attended home games, where she would help run events such as Japan Night and Day Camp Day, by distributing hats, t-shirts and other promotional items to fans. She enjoyed watching batting practice from the dugout before games and meeting players and executives, such as President Chuck Armstrong. Navarro also served as the sales department’s link to the public by talking to fans and answering their e-mails.

“Melissa’s job this summer involved working in an area that interacted directly with our fans,” said Tim Hevly, the Mariners’ Director of Baseball Operations.   “Professional sports is really a two-pronged business. On the field ––wins and losses: and off the field: taking care of fans. Our fans are the lifeblood of the Mariners organization. They are the only reason any of our jobs exist, so any position that deals directly with the fans has a huge impact on the success of the organization.”

After she landed the internship with her favorite team, Navarro had to watch it cut struggling slugger Richie Sexson, fire General Manager Bill Bavasi, and maintain the worst record in the American League.

“When a team performs like that, you’re going to need a great front office working for it. All of the people I worked with were the ones who made it a pretty successful season,” said Navarro. “It was all about the fans. It was the only thing we had going for us. The CEO and COO of the organization were very hands on. They were willing to meet everybody in the office and brainstorm ideas on how we could keep fans coming to the games.”

In addition to sales, a professional sports franchise provides opportunities in several fields, including corporate sales, events, marketing, public relations, community relations, information technology and accounting, said Hevly, who graduated from Whitman in 1988.

“I want to go into sports or media law, so I thought it would be good to work with a sports team. It would definitely give me a foot in the door if I tried to work there again, and I think that goes for any internship for any organization you want to work for,” Navarro said.

“There is a lot of marketing done in sports, so a great deal of the work that can be found in any sports industry is in marketing.   That entails understanding the psychology of what appeals to people as well as creativity in writing or projecting images or items,”  said Susan Buchanan, Director of the Whitman Career Center.

Students interested in the sports industry can visit the Career Center, which has books on the sports industry and includes a list of internships on its Web site,

Whitman.edu/content/career_center, Buchanan said.