Tim Katzman
Sabbatical Leads to a Career in Sports
May 17, 2006 | by brett | Permalink
Tim Katzman is the Director of Corporate Communications for the San Diego Padres, and has been with the organization for 11 years. He started off as a professor in American Studies on the East Coast and ended up being in the right place at the right time. He created a position for himself with the Padres where he reached out to fans that were disengaged with the sport as a result of the 1994 baseball strike. He is now the self-proclaimed “editorial free safety” for the ball club and claims to, “work in the toy department of life.” Given that description, he is no doubt passionate about what he does for a living.
Tim claims that the Padres are only as good as the fans that come to the park. He has worked hard to make the ballpark experience more desireable by making ticket prices more reasonable, reaching out to the community and putting a competiive product out on the field.
His advice to college students is to focus on writing effectively to clearly communicate the message that you are trying to get across to your audience. He advises that when writing a paper, “you need to rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, and then give it to someone else to read it over.”
He defines luck as “when hard work meets opportunity.”
His advice to someone trying to get a job baseball is to gain experience at the minor league level. He says that this will allow you to differentiate yourself on a resume from the thousand of other applicants trying to get a job in sports. It will also give you a better idea of whether a career in sports is right for you.
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