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Marty Maloney

Staying in Front of People

August 28, 2006 | by brett | Permalink

To this point, we’ve heard 23 different stories of how people have broken into the sports industry, and no story is the same. We have come to the obvious realization that there is not one standard path to get in! These sports stories are among the most entertaining that I’ve heard on the trip. I have a newfound respect for the people persistent enough to stick with their pursuit, all for the thrill of working in the sports industry. Marty Maloney is one such person. He currently works for his hometown team, the World Champion Chicago White Sox. It seems that his honest approach would make any sports team take a chance on him.

Marty grew up in Southside Chicago, where there is no talk of “the other team that plays baseball in Chicago.” It used to be the only place in the country that you could find people wearing White Sox gear, but with the organization’s newfound success, it seems that you can find a Sox pinstripe jersey just about anywhere; even in Wrigleyville. Such was the case when the PTP team attending a, dare I say it, Cubs game. As we approached the historic stadium, a rival fan drove by in a beat up ‘82 “whatever” chanting “White Sox.” It is this kind of passion that keeps the rivalry alive in Chicago.

Marty grew up a Sox fan and always had a love for baseball. His road into sports began when he decided to attend the University of Arizona for his freshman year. There he worked alongside Jim Rosborough, the assistant to head basketball coach Lute Olson (see Lute Olson interview). Marty took stats from the beloved and highly sought after Wildcats bench. Unable to grow accustomed to the triple digit temperatures in the desert, he soon found himself homesick. He decided to return to the Midwest and found a new and more comfortable home at the University of Iowa.

Marty wanted to get involved with Iowa sports, just as he had in Tucson,. He phoned the athletic department repeatedly with no results. Looking for an alternate route, he visited the offices every so often to see if there was any way that he could contribute to the program. Now a senior, he finally got his chance after two years of persistence. A position was created for him where he could write stories about the games as well as take stats for the basketball team.

After he graduated, he began to look for jobs and internships in sports. He landed a phone interview for a year-long internship with the NBA’s Orlando Magic organization, which had the worst league record at the time (21-61). Marty decided that he was going to make the most of his internship, looking at it as a fifth year of schooling. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get their Master’s with an NBA team? He felt that he learned more with Magic than he did at the university level. His focus became “off-the-court relations” because management wanted to overt attention away from the Magic’s poor on the court performance.

The downside of a year-long internship is that it ends. So Marty found himself moving back to Chicago where he accepted a, marketing position with a food company. At that same time, the Sox were having a year that every baseball franchise dreams about having. They were setting attendance records and working their way through the playoffs. With the team’s every accomplishment Marty sent an e-mail to executives congratulating them on their success. After they won the World Series he sent them a hand written note, part of his philosophy of“always staying in front of people.”

So, when a job posting appeared on the PR Society of Chicago with an opening for the Chicago White Sox, it was Marty’s philosophy that put him a step ahead of his competition. The Thursday before Opening Day this year in 2006, he had his first interview with the team for the available Public Relations Coordinator position. On May 8th, over a month later, he started a job with his hometown team. Marty speaks of May 8th as if it were a day that should be ever remembered in infamy.

His position with the White Sox, much like it was with the Orlando Magic, is focused on the off the field coverage. In only three months with the organization, Marty has already coordinated events like Habitat for Humanity for Hurricane Katrina, in which players like Jim Thome and Paul Konerko built a home for a family, and Miracle Field, a baseball field built in the southwest side of Chicago for children with special needs. He admits that there are perks to his line of work. You can find Marty Maloney in the press box during Sox games rooting on his team/employer/product in a professional/fan-like manner. He also admits that the staff that he works with makes his job so much easier. Among this group is the well respected vice president of communications, Scott Reifert.

Additional advice that Marty had for students was something that he learned while with the Orlando Magic. It consisted of the classic question that you hear in interviews, not the one about strengths and weaknesses, but the one which asks “Where do you see yourself in five or ten years?”

Marty learned that you should never want to be “here” in five years or “there” in ten. “If you’re the coordinator of public relations, you shouldn’t say that you’ll be the manager in five. It will all take care of itself in the long run.”

Also, Marty added additional advice that is something that we’ve heard quite frequently on the trip. This certain something goes by the name of, writing!

“I didn’t have the best writing skills, I was a marketing guy in school. But you’ll write in any field you go into. Even in finance you’ll have to write memos and emails. You can become a better writer by reading any kind of material.”