Chris Adams was at a crossroads in 2015. The New Jersey native had recently graduated from Rutgers University and was figuring out his next steps the best way a 22-year-old could. He had gotten a job as the office administrator at the SMG Sportsplex in Metuchen, New Jersey, while working at a summer camp and everything was going according to plan.
However, life had other plans.
Adams’ father tragically passed away, sending his life in a spiral. He moved back home to South Jersey to help his family, leaving his job in the process. Stuck, Adams attempted to figure out what to do before a friend gave him a helping hand.
“This isn’t what I set out to do when I graduated college. I was doing sports, not doing what I love, so it was a tough time,” Adams said. “Wouldn’t you know. I look on my Facebook Messenger friend from college who I didn’t play basketball with, I didn’t do sports with, but this is somebody that I knew through another friend. He messaged me, ‘Hey, Chris, I’m not sure what you’re doing, but you know, there’s this new job at the Sixers that just opened up.’”
Adams took the job with the 76ers and never looked back, working his way from an office services coordinator to the manager of fan development for the team. He was one of many speakers who talked about his experiences during Temple’s Public Relations Student Society of America Game On: PR in Sports Conference Saturday.
The event was the National PRSSA Mid-Atlantic District Conference, one of eight PRSSA district conferences. The two-day event hosted a plethora of schools from the area, including Messiah University, Arcadia University and the University of Delaware. Temple applied to host in August 2024 and was announced as one of the district sites in October 2024.
“It was early October that we got an email saying we were chosen,” said district conference coordinator Elena Erdley. “Then, from there on it went into us getting rooms, figuring out how much stuff we were going to need, what times work and starting to get together our sponsorship package.”
The weekend kicked off with a welcome event on Friday night with words from PRSSA National Committee Vice President of Events and Fundraising, Alicia Caracciolo. The University of South Carolina student talked to attendees not much younger than her about her experiences getting her foot in the door in the industry.
Whether it was taking photos at the 2024 Women’s College Basketball Final Four, doing trash duty at the College Football Playoff National Championship or writing a recap for her student newspaper, Caracciolo’s sentiment stayed the same — take advantage of every opportunity.
That theme remained throughout the rest of the conference. Day two began with a Women in Sports Panel. There, Temple professor Lauren Bullock spoke to the likes of Claire Smith, Lauren Templin and Mia Nardone. It was less of a question and answer, but more of a discussion of nearly three different generations of women in sports discussing their experiences.
Smith spoke about how her mother ingrained an affinity for the then Brooklyn Dodgers and Jackie Robinson before she was even born. The choice of player is fitting because Robinson and Smith became trailblazers in their own right, with Robinson breaking MLB’s color barrier and Smith becoming the first woman to be a full-time MLB beat reporter.
Templin recalled her experiences as a sports information director at the University of Pennsylvania. Like Adams, she was unsure of what she wanted to do when she was in school, switching from Culinary school to Niagara University. Templin currently oversees the communications for six Quaker sports and has to deal with the personalities each one brings.
“[The coaches] are all different personalities. They’re all very gruff,” Templin said. “I have noticed they speak to me differently than they speak to my male counterparts. I’ve accepted that that is how it is. I know if I did have a problem with them, my boss would be the first person to have my back and stand up for me.”
From there, conference attendees spent the rest of the time playing a choose-your-own-adventure game. Attendees picked which of the four breakout sessions they wanted to attend; there were four in the morning and four more in the afternoon.
Every speaker was on each side of the coin when it came to the sports world. Adams spoke on fan engagement in his role with the 76ers. He was the in-game host of the Delaware Blue Coats while essentially working in the mail room and working his way up the ladder. Templin and fellow speaker Shane Ramsey, communications coordinator with the Philadelphia Eagles, deal with communication with the media.
Other speakers touched on the team’s marketing on social media. Miyah Sizer works as a social media coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles and talked about the day-to-day marketing of the defending Super Bowl champions.
However, each person was human and the love of sports propelled them to where they are now.
Like nearly every kid, Ramsey grew up wanting to be like LeBron James, but those dreams were quickly dashed. Sizer was a women’s basketball player at Nazareth college and didn’t shy away from her battles with imposter syndrome but overcame it to build her path.
“I always tell my fiance, ‘We’re not hip. So nobody’s going to be perfect,’” Sizer said. “We are not perfect people. It’s fine to strive for perfection. Obviously, perfection is always the goal, but we also can’t get so hung up on being perfect all the time because that’s never going to be the case. Something’s going to come up and mistakes are going to be made.”
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