An hour and a half before each home game, senior guard Nick Kellogg can be found on the court, putting the finishing touches on his fluid shooting motion that earned him the Mid-American Conference record in made three-pointers.
But for two hours on Thursday afternoons, the second team All-MAC performer spends his time interning as a part of his practicum in the External Relations office at The Convo, getting real-world practice for his life after the playing days are over.
Kellogg, a sports management major and business administration minor, said he doesn’t know what job he wants to pursue post-basketball, but knows that he wants to stay in sports. And working with Ohio University’s Media Relations department gives him a taste of what work each part of the athletic department looks like.
“We’re in a unique situation, because with media relations, you touch every different department within an athletic department,” said Assistant Athletic Director for Media Relations Tom Symonds. “It’s an avenue that if you want to get involved with athletics, this is a good place to start.”
Office tasks for Kellogg vary from week to week. One day he might type up a scouting report for an upcoming game and the next time he could create roster cards.
The part of the practicum that has fascinated him the most was when he worked at a women’s basketball game running stats from the floor up to press row.
“The coolest part of (working) at the women’s game was seeing how they entered stats,” Kellogg said. “It’s pretty tough to see everything on the court and make sure it gets in the stat book correctly.”
Symonds said student athletes don’t often work in their office because the time constraints between athletics and finding the time to work in the department are difficult. But Kellogg expressed an interest to work and Symonds and others in the media relations office were more than happy to have him aboard.
Nick’s father, Clark, who was an All-Big Ten basketball player at Ohio State and former first-round pick of the Indiana Pacers, has remained in the game, currently serving as the Vice President of Player Relations for the Pacers.
It’s Clark’s second year in the position and seeing what it’s like to work in a sports organization from his father’s perspective will be valuable to Nick down the road.
“He’s around the team all the time — at practices and games,” Kellogg said. “That’s something that, down the road, I’ll always have his advice and expertise in that matter. So that could be a potential path if playing and that kind of thing doesn’t work out.”
But Kellogg, a player who coach Jim Christian called “one of the marquee players” in the MAC, doesn’t plan to stop playing the sport any time soon.
He wants to follow in the footsteps of his friends and former Bobcat teammates Ivo Baltic, D.J. Cooper and others by taking his basketball talents overseas and testing the waters in European professional leagues.
Kellogg regularly FaceTimes with Baltic to see how the 2013 OU graduate and former forward is doing and has spoken to his fellow former teammates Cooper and Reggie Keely to get a feel for how the sport is played across the pond.
“I just keep in touch and see how they’re doing overseas and see if they like it and see what the experience is like so I can kind of get an idea of what it’d be like for myself to be over there,” Kellogg said.
With all the work Kellogg has placed in basketball on and off the court the court, he sees no reason to stop simply because his collegiate years are nearly over.
“I’ve put this much time and energy into the game and I’m still healthy and young, so I might as well keep playing,” he said.
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