Football brought senior William “Bo” Black to Trinity University, and once he was here, he fell in love with the concept of giving back.
An intern with San Antonio Sports in 2015, he returned to the agency in the summer of 2016 as a volunteer while he was holding another internship with Spurs Sports and Entertainment. And on top of that, he held down a part-time job delivering pizzas.
“Keeping busy helps me stay on track,” says Black, who is from Fort Worth. Earlier this year, he enrolled in 18 semester hours, held an internship with the Texas Senior Games, took part in spring football practice, and adopted a “nose to the grindstone” mentality. That semester resulted in one of his best GPAs during his time at Trinity.
A running back for four years, Black credits head football Coach Jerheme Urban with “demanding respect from his players and giving it in return for the people who put in the work.”
In the classroom, Black says he has learned much from Jacob Tingle ‘95, director of Experiential Learning, who encourages students to keep a journal outlining their reflections of their time at Trinity. “If you write things down, it makes things more intentional,” Black says. “That makes things more efficient and you are smarter with your actions.”
He put this philosophy into practice while interning at San Antonio Sports, where he was an event management intern helping to deliver and set up equipment to remote locations where children would participate in fitness events such as jump rope and other sports in keeping with the organization’s goal of family fitness. Black says he especially enjoyed his role in the annual Corporate Cup where businesses compete in track, football, basketball and other sports to capture a trophy. During his internship, he also helped with technology questions and generally made sure events ran smoothly.
The following summer, he had a second internship but went back to San Antonio Sports to volunteer setting up for the 2016 Corporate Cup. “I came back three days early to help with that event,” he says. “I love helping them out. They spend so much effort helping me, I’d like to help them.”
Black continues, “I can’t say enough good things about San Antonio Sports,” Black says. “Everybody there wanted to see me succeed. They wanted to see everybody succeed.”
It’s a feeling of success that has kept Black focused on his coursework for a degree in business management with a minor in sports management. When he graduates in May 2017, Black hopes to work for a sports team in some capacity. In the meantime, he enjoys volunteering to meet new people and to contribute to various charities. “It’s all about helping the community. It’s good for San Antonio.”
In the summer of 2016, his internship with the Spurs required him to sell additional tickets to families of kids participating in youth basketball games. Each team received 10 free tickets, but Black had to contact roughly 400 coaches throughout the U.S. and Mexico to invite them to buy more tickets and to attend WNBA games. As the basketball tournament was approaching, Black’s boss notified him that he would be out of the office to donate a kidney to his father. “That put the responsibility on my shoulders,” Black says, adding that he stepped up and had “no issues with tickets. Everything ran smoothly.”
He learned that communication is a key to a successful internship, especially when calling 400 coaches, and all that goes along with that task—making sure he had the correct phone numbers and making sufficient follow-up calls.”I had to make sure my bosses and co-workers knew what I was doing,” he says.
During this time, Black says he also kept in close contact with Tingle, whom he described as a “huge mentor. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
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