Rice’s Department of Sport Management hosts signing ceremony for students

Rice University’s Department of Sport Management hosted its fifth annual “Signing Ceremony and Industry Mixer” Feb. 19 for students deciding to pursue a degree in the discipline. The event was held at Saint Arnold Brewing Co. in Houston.

Rice's newly-declared Sport Management majors.

The gathering included current students, new majors, sport management faculty and staff and a number of prominent alums of the department, including Mary Mikell Lampton ’14 and Lilly Marrow of Academy Sports + Outdoors national headquarters, Brandon Yelovich ’11 of the Positive Coaching Alliance, Kimberly Sutton ’11 of the Houston Dynamo and Ashten Ackerman ’11 of the Sam Houston State University Department of Athletics.

A highlight of the event was the recognition of 26 new sport management majors, who signed documents indicating their intent to pursue this field of study.

New Sport Management major Zach Yablon pictured with Clark Haptonstall and Chris Canetti of the Houston Dynamo.

Clark Haptonstall, the department’s chair, said the annual mixer is a great opportunity for students to interact with each other and with prominent alumni. Rice’s sport management majors have gone on to accept a variety of jobs with professional, collegiate and high school sports teams, as well as jobs in sports media, marketing and business. For a full list of prominent positions held by Rice sport management alums, visit http://sport.rice.edu/alumni/.

“This is an event that we look forward to hosting each year,” Haptonstall said. “Not only are we able to showcase our newest students, we also are able to provide them the opportunity to network with dozens of Houston-area executives who work in the sport industry.”

For more information on the Department of Sport Management, visit http://sport.rice.edu/.