How NCAA internship helped Lauren Gilligan find the right career in sports

When Lauren Gilligan took off her soccer cleats for the last time as a student-athlete at Evansville, she knew she did not want that moment to mark the end of sports in her life. The senior forward, who at the time was Lauren Tiernan or LT, had been around sports her entire life and struggled to see a future without them. 

"I was one of those college student-athletes that when I graduated, I was like, 'Wait, what is my life now? What's next? Why do I have to move on from being a student-athlete?'" Gilligan said. "That was my identity, in a way."

That identity never fully went away. Instead, it created motivation to find a career in sports. With the help of the NCAA Postgraduate Internship Program, she found the right path for her.

As a senior, Gilligan, a sports management major, was first exposed to the inner workings of college athletics through an internship with her athletics department. Learning from administrators about the work that happens behind the scenes pushed her to pursue another internship with the Evansville Sports Corp., a pivotal moment in Gilligan's career. A large part of her internship involved working on the NCAA Division II Men's Basketball Championship, giving her a glimpse into managing large events and championships at a level she had never seen before. 

"That kind of lit a fire under me (to see) what other opportunities are there in championships specifically," Gilligan said.

That opportunity would come less than a year later, when she first heard about the NCAA's internship program. At the time, she was working as a graduate assistant for the University of the Incarnate Word's athletics department on the operations team. She was immediately intrigued by the positions in championships and alliances, a perfect opportunity to learn about working in championship operations at the national level.

John Williams, the athletics director at UIW during Gilligan's tenure, was a former NCAA employee and aided her through the application process.

"That helped ease me through the interview process and gave me an idea of what it was like at the national office, which made me want the position and drove me even more to get it," Gilligan said.

She wound up with a spot with the 2015-16 cohort. From day one, Gilligan was committed to exposing herself to a diverse workload and creating meaningful connections with people inside and outside the national office. 

Over the course of the year, Gilligan played a role in nearly 20 championships across the three divisions. Some of her in-person experiences included helping with community outreach initiatives surrounding the Division I Women's Volleyball Championship, running events at the Division II National Championships Festival and assisting in championship operations for the Division III Baseball Championship.

But the most memorable event of all was the Division I Wrestling Championships, which were held that year at Madison Square Garden in New York.

"To this day, my favorite championship I've ever been a part of," Gilligan said. "I never thought I would enjoy it … but, yeah, I would go back to that championship any day if I had the opportunity."

While traveling to championships and handing out trophies were an amazing part of Gilligan's experience, the days spent working in the national office with her fellow interns and colleagues produced some of her favorite moments that year.

"I do miss those days of going into the office and sitting in our little champs group. … We had so much fun," Gilligan said. "It was really a 'work hard, play hard' mentality. We were working hard on these huge events, but then we would celebrate our victories. It was just a really fun group of people that I really enjoyed working with."

On top of the connections she made with people like her supervisor, Molly Simons, her mentor, John Baldwin, and her cohort leader, Dawn Buth, Gilligan also came away from the internship with soft skills that she could use in everyday life.

"I was really shy coming into the internship, as far as raising my hand and being willing to speak in a meeting or in front of a huge group of people that I didn't know," Gilligan said. "I learned a lot about that through the cohort and through the leadership development meetings that we went through with all the other NCAA interns. I think they did an incredible job with the curriculum in that area and bringing in different speakers throughout the year that were able to give us new young grads and young leaders tips on how to speak and how to be confident in these rooms where you're definitely not the most experienced person in there."

Gilligan has put what she learned at the NCAA to use through her work at the West Coast Conference, where she has advanced from assistant director to assistant commissioner of championships and sport administration. In that role, she acts as the sports administrator for men's and women's soccer and men's and women's golf and the championships manager for baseball and men's and women's golf. She also oversees the conference's awards, court and signage programs.

It's a role she may not have gotten without references from her colleagues at the NCAA and people like Karina Herold, a former NCAA intern she met during her professional development trip at Pepperdine.

"It's just such a small world in college athletics, and it's amazing how many people the people in the national office know and how helpful they will be as you're entering the workforce after the internship ends," Gilligan said.

She encourages anyone who is interested in a career in college athletics to apply to the program, as it put her on the right path toward a meaningful career in sports.

"(The internship) completely blew away any expectations I had," Gilligan said. "It was a really cool experience for me."