John McBride is a rising senior at the University of Massachusetts where is an active member of the school's thriving club golf team. John also serves as the Regional Coordinator of the Northern New England Region where he works with all of the club golf president on the teams to organize fall tournaments. John is a sport management major and rising senior at UMass.
What did you learn as a Regional Coordinator in the spring?
I learned a lot about planning and how to effectively communicate dealing with teams, players, courses and many other moving pieces makes you learn how to communicate with different types of leading club golf teams. Some of our teams have coaches while others are led by student club presidents. I also learned to adapt to who you were dealing with. Many club presidents I found prefer to communicate via text messages while golf coaches typically prefer email communication.
I also learned that running a successful college golf event is incredibly rewarding and has been an amazing way to meet other great college golfers like me.
What are your goals to improve the Northern New England Region in the fall?
We've had a couple of new teams express interest in our tournaments in our events like UMass and Merrimack and I'd like to get them more involved and competing in both tournaments to give Boston University, Northeastern, and University of New Hampshire a run for their money and increase competition across the board. I'm also excited to see the growth of college golf on my own UMass campus. It was always surprising to me that we didn't have a college golf team, but we are building a ton of momentum for our club golf team heading into the fall.
I also want to help teams know about the benefits that Nextgengolf provides such as team fundraising and partner benefits from Cleveland Golf, Srixon and State Traditions.
What is your summer internship?
I'm interning at TJX, the corporate for TJ Max and Marshalls. I'm a planning intern working on creating shipping strategies and allocating product to other stores.
Did NCCGA help you get the job?
Being a Region Coordinator definitely is something I had on my resume and was a huge talking point as I had a lot of responsibility leading college golf tournaments. The big thing TJX liked was my communication skills which was tremendously helpful in the actual interviews.
Playing much golf?
I've been playing here and there, a lot of twilight rounds after work. Even though I'm working 9-5, my friends are accommodating. I have a college membership at Green Hill, a Nextgen Collegiate Course.
**John McBride is the Regional Coordinator of the Northern New England Region. Contact him on Twitter @NCCGANNE
