For the college’s Seminar on Careers in Sport Management class, headed by professor Jim Kadlecek, just seven hours were needed to locate and examine the business inner-workings of Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association in New York.

Kadlecek, who also coaches the Marlington High School girl’s soccer team, went with Mount Union’s director of sport management Jim Thoma and 11 students on a one-day trip to Manhattan to get a close-up glimpse at the business side of the sporting world in America today. The travelers also got a chance to get some background on the company of IMG, a sports management and marketing firm that is viewed as one of the world’s best.

“It was a chance to experience a bit of the business, and to experience New York,” Kadlecek said. For 10 of the 11 students tagging along on the Friday trip, it was a first-ever hiatus to the Big Apple. “I told them they would have the weekend to recover.”

The 13-person group left on a plane from the Akron-Canton Airport at around 8 a.m. and was back in the air by 6 p.m. the same day.

The flight home had the students mulling over what they had crammed into a few hours on the ground. The group was able to meet and discuss topics with sports business executives Scott O’Neil (senior vice president of marketing and team business operations for the NBA), John Brody (senior vice president of corporate sales and marketing for MLB), David Abrutyn (senior vice president of IMG) and Mount Union graduate Todd Fleming (director of inside sales for the New Jersey Nets).

O’Neil and Brody had both previously been recognized in Street and Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal as a pair of the 40 most influential people under 40 in sports.

Kadlecek had already built running relationships with O’Neil, Abrutyn and Fleming, and it jus so happened that Brody was back in the office for the first time after returning from baseball’s offseason business meetings.

In Brody’s case, the group actually met in the same conference room where pro baseball’s most recent collective bargaining agreements were negotiated and finalized. That particular office, know as the Jackie Robinson Conference Room, had a perch on the 32nd floor of its building and offered a view of Manhattan.

“The experience of being in the offices and being in the board room where the baseball labor agreement was reached was an awesome experience,” junior sport management major Mike Reynolds of Uniontown, Ohio said.

With each of the companies within walking distance, the students were exposed to many angles of different sports business throughout the informational afternoon. They were words that, due to each speaker’s credentials, could certainly be taken to heart.

“It was a great experience for the students because of the access to some of the business’s most important individuals,” Kadlecek said.

Another motivational aspect of the day for the group of students was the fact that the average age of the four executives was just 31. So they were not far removed from being in the shoes of a secondary education themselves.

“There are times as a student when you begin doubting your future,” junior sport management major Nick Minerd of Campbell, Ohio said. “It helps to see that others have had similar experiences and where still able to become very successful.”

With the experimental class using a more guest-speaking, hands-on approach for the first time (it was offered in a different format during one other semester), Kadlecek said that the school is looking at it to possibly become a permanent part of the curriculum.

The professor hopes that the real-world touch will be available to more of Mount Union’s enrollment in the near future.

“One of the great things about Mount Union is its flexibility with experimental classes like this,” Kadlecek said. “The students just had the chance to hear from some unbelievable people, and I was glad to be a part of it, too.”