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Taylor Krouse

Final Portfolio

Professional Writing 108W

May 3, 2017

Professor Anne Walker

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Table of Contents Cover Letter….………………………………………………………….3

Resume………….………………………………………………………4

Job Description………………………………………………………….5

Personal Statement………………………………………………………6

The Creation Process……………………………………………………9

Data Analysis………………………………………………………......11

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Taylor Krouse 13331 Lester Road NW Silverdale, WA 98383

5-3-17

The Golden State Warriors

1011 Broadway

Oakland, CA 94607

Dear Bob Myers,

It is with great enthusiasm that I apply for the summer management internship that was

advertised on the Golden State Warriors website. My educational background, experience, and passion for the game all help to make me a qualified candidate for the position

I am approaching my last year at Holy Names University where I will be graduating in the Spring of 2019 with a BA in Sports Management in Motion, a self-designed major. While I have

a comprehensive athletic and biological background, my emphasis is on business and management. I believe that your organization places prominence in the same areas and having

the opportunity to work for you as an intern would be a privilege and would provide me with valuable experience to become a successful general manager.

After graduating I plan on managing a team in the NBA. With an opportunity to work with one of the most successful teams in the league, I will be able to expand my knowledge of how to run

a team efficiently and lead it to success.

I previously held an internship with Holy Names University athletics. I was the primary intern for Debbie Snell, the Athletic Director for the university. I was able to see most of what goes on

behind the scenes of being in charge of an entire university’s athletic program. This may interest you seeing as this position is helping to look over an entire basketball program.

I would love the opportunity to meet with you to further discuss this internship opportunity.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need samples of work. You can reach me on my cell (360) 516-0572 or by email at taylor_krouse@my.hnu.edu.

Thank you for your consideration,

Sincerely,

Taylor Krouse

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Taylor Krouse-Resume 13331 Lester Road NW Silverdale, WA 98383 | (360)516-0572 | taylor_krouse@my.hnu.edu

Objectives: I am seeking an internship position with a program where I can utilize my education, background, experience, and knowledge. I hope to learn and progress while at this program and

hopefully further my career with your sports team.

Education: 2019 Bachelor of Arts in Sports Management in Motion Holy Names University Oakland, California

GPA: 3.78 Dean’s list 2015-2019 Alpha Delta Leadership Award-2015, 2019 Women’s Basketball Captain 2017-2019 Member of Student Athletic Committee, 2018 and 2019 Female Athlete of the year.

Skills and Qualifications:

• Team building skills

• Leadership experience

• Multitasking and time management

• Strong communication skills and computer skills

• Commitment to what I am doing and the program I am in

Experience:

Holy Names University Athletics

September 2016-2019

I was in charge of selling tickets, keeping track of attendance, and working the scoreboard at

sporting events. I also assisted with setup and clean up. I assisted with all of the behind the

scenes operations that helped make the athletic events run smoothly and professionally.

Holy Names University Front Desk

Septebmber-2017-2019

Answered phone calls, helped guests and students with questions and concerns, sorted mail and

did filing, helped maintain a gregarious atmosphere at the Front Desk.

Holy Names University Athletics Internship

August 2018-January 2019

I was the intern for Debbie Snell, the athletic director at Holy Names University. I helped her

with paperwork, attending games, was a second opinion for decision making, and attended the

meetings she had. Had the opportunity to travel with her as well and be her second hand.

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Job Description

Typically, general managers for the National Basketball Association (NBA) are so

focused on higher level operations that they overlook other aspects that are vital to the success of

the organization. They oversee all business and financial operations and play an important role

in public relations and player personnel decisions, including drafting, handling free agents, and

contacts. As a general manager, I would bring focus not only to higher level operations but also

to the resources needed to identify and provide for the physical needs and demands of the

players.

Most of a general manager’s time is consumed by strategic planning, both long-term and

short-term. They are called upon to make the important decisions, and they have a strong staff

surrounding them to take care of the small details. Once the manager feels they have gathered

enough information from their staff about an issue they will make the final decision. Much of

the general manager’s time is spent in meetings and attending public events. General managers

have a strong presence when they are negotiating or seeking to build a new business

venture/partnership.

Developing and maintaining a closely involved relationship with the players is an

important aspect of this job. Guiding the players to make difficult decisions lies not only in the

hands of the coaching and scouting staff but also in the hands of the general manager. Over the

years, as the league has progressed, it has become more common for the general managers to be

more actively involved with player personnel issues. The general managers are trusted by the

players and the team’s owners to cede the decisions that the players need to make.

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As a general manager, I would focus more energy on identifying and providing for the

physical needs of the players. My self-designed major, Sports Management in Motion, has

provided me with the knowledge and expertise needed to accomplish this goal. I will partner

with the players to be sure they are getting the proper amount of exercise, sleep, as well as proper

intake of food. I will eliminate barriers so that the players have access to everything they need to

keep their bodies healthy and in the best condition for season. My understanding of the physical

necessities of my players will be an asset to the program in its efforts to keep the team

maintained and properly prepared for competition.

My responsibilities will be closely aligned with those of the majority of general

managers. I will oversee all higher- level business functions and be fully involved in player

personnel decisions. In addition, I will also focus on the physical aspects and condition of my

players, staying more involved and helping them stay prepared.

Personal Statement

In this personal statement, the potential employer will learn more about why I am the top

candidate for the open position as evidenced by work ethic, background, experience, knowledge,

creativity, and self-motivation. My experiences have helped to shape and to create the character

I have today.

Sports have been an integral part of my life since I was five years old. I was always

involved in a physical activity throughout the entire year, from school sports to select teams that

go year-round. Basketball has always been the main sport that I was interested in and felt the

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most passionate about. I have been playing this game since I was in Kindergarten and will be

finishing my basketball career in college at Holy Names University. The knowledge I have

about the game is near the level of most coaches. Through all my experience playing as well as

helping coach and train teams I have learned all aspects of the game. I was a student of the game

from a young age and my IQ for basketball is very high. Playing throughout college taught me

even more and expanded my mind about the game.

From the ages of 15-18 I assisted with running camps for the select team program I

played for. I was assigned a station and was responsible for teaching the campers a particular

fundamental basketball skill. I did not know what station I would be in charge of until a few

minutes before the head coach split us up. Once I was assigned to the station, I would quickly

come up with the drills that would coincide with the skill they were going to improve. I had to

be a quick thinker and creative in order to keep the campers occupied for the 10 minutes I would

have each group. That is where my coaching perspective began, it continued when I was given

the opportunity to coach a team of high school girls at the end of my senior year and throughout

that summer.

Coaching girls that were so close to my age was very challenging and I was nervous in

the beginning to say the least. However, they respected me and everything I had to say because

they had all seen me perform and they wanted to learn from my knowledge of the game. I was

able to be assertive and teach these girls the game of basketball. Before my select coach became

the Head Coach at Gig Harbor High School they struggled in the women’s basketball program.

Once my select coach stepped in things began to look up for the program and I was able to assist

in this process. I created the practice plans and ran them through every drill three times a week

throughout the Spring and Summer season. On the weekends, I coached the team in

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tournaments. I had to be very efficient and professional as these were official tournaments and

there were a few college sanctioned tournaments as well. I had the opportunity to be a part of the

process for these girl’s future. In the following two years, they made it to the State tournament

and I am honored to say I assisted in the process in getting them there. Through my coaching

experience, I was able to learn and understand what it takes for a coach to succeed and also see

what the players need from the coaching staff.

Throughout all of my years of competing, except one, I was a starter playing a great deal

of minutes. In the seventh grade, I had a coach that tested my commitment and confidence. She

refused to play me even though I worked extremely hard at practice and I was one of the better

players who deserved minutes. This experience brought me down and diminished my passion

and love for the game. I never wanted to go to practices or even tournaments because all I could

do was sit there and watch, the game was no longer fun for me. Through this adversity, I learned

what commitment truly was. I never stopped going to practices, I never stopped attending

tournaments, I never quit. No matter how hard it got, I learned to push through and continue

what I started. I finished out the year and then continued my play with another program that

gave me opportunities, challenges, and taught me how to love the game again.

Through everything I have experienced, I have become a stronger person and a leader. I

have consistently led athletes who were older than me because I started leading my select team

as a Freshman in high school. The same thing happened in college, where I was called on to be a

leader on the team even to those who were older than me. I know how to earn respect and how

to keep it through my work ethic and knowledge of the game. I became aware of how to be a

leader from a young age and have been able to stay successful in being one. I learned how to

utilize my creativity and quick-thinking through coaching and running drills. All of these skills I

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have been able to utilize and perfect. I believe these are important qualities to have in a

management position. I have a great amount of experience in practicing each and every one of

these qualities and I am confident in my ability to transfer them over to a career in management.

The Creation Process

The creation process of my self-designed major is included in my portfolio because it is

unique from any other major and something I created entirely on my own. The Golden State

Warriors stated “It's harder to find capable GMs than it is coaches because there are so many hats

you have to wear as GM. It's a leadership position. It's an executive position.” With creating my

own major I had to take initiative and control because I was in charge of whether it would get

approved or not.

Designing my own major was challenging particularly when trying to keep up with my

schoolwork while playing basketball. The process took a while because first I needed to figure

out what my plan was and why the major I wanted to create would be beneficial for jobs I

wanted in the future. Figuring out my goal behind the major was difficult at first because I

wanted to combine Sports Biology with Sports Management, while they both apply to sports

they are very different fields of study. However, I was interested in both and decided to move

forward and combine the two with the majority of my study being in Sports Management. I

finally came to the conclusion after a few weeks of pondering that I wanted to manage a sports

team while having a biological background.

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Since I have experience being an athlete, I was particularly interested in getting some

schooling on the physical side of Sports Biology. With some background in Sports Biology, I

would be able to understand more of what my athletes need physically. Once my purpose was

better defined, I began to search through the course catalog and select the classes that I felt

would help get me the education that I needed for my goal. It did not take as long as I expected

to gather together the classes I felt would be a good match. Reading through the descriptions it

was clear which ones would be beneficial for me. The more challenging part was deciding

between classes that were similar in what information they would be providing me. After a few

weeks of searching I was able to put together the classes I felt would be the best options for the

concept of Sports Management with a biological background. I concluded with 7 classes that

would be preparation for the major: Principles of Biological Science, Intro Chemistry-Health

Sciences, Lifespan Development, Probability and Statistics, Human Anatomy, Interpersonal

Communication, and Nutrition. All of these classes were taken in order to get me ready for the

upper division classes I selected on which were: Principles of Management, Organizational

Behavior, Sports Organization and Leadership, Sports Marketing and Public Relations,

Principles of Marketing, Organizational Communication, Professional Writing, Advanced

Human Physiology, Exercise Physiology Lab, Sport Theory, Sports Psychology, Learning and

Cognition, and Seminar of Biological Sciences. After reading through these course descriptions

I felt that they would successfully prepare me for the job I plan on having in the future.

Once I had all my classes together I handed them into Laura Lyndon, my advisor, and she

informed me that the next step was to name my major and then write a narrative about my major

and what I wanted to get out of it. The name came to me pretty quickly once I thought about

what my goal was for this major. Sports Management in Motion describes perfectly what I want

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out of my major. Since that was settled I was able to write my narrative that would get presented

to the board. The board, all the professors that work at Holy Names University, would hear

about my major from Lyndon who presents it for me. She showed them my course schedule and

read my narrative which basically summed up my goal to manage a team while understanding

my player’s physical necessities as well. Before Lyndon could take it to the board I needed to

get it approved by two professors, one from the Biological Sciences Department and one from

the Business Department. Both professors loved my idea and felt I only needed one change with

my coursework and that was an easy fix. At the next meeting, Lyndon was able to present my

proposal and it was successful. Almost all professors were in favor of my self-designed major.

There were a few professors with concerns about the idea of self-designed majors who had some

comments but it passed!

The relief I felt when I found out my major was approved was unreal, as it took a lot of

time and effort to put together my own major. I am so thankful for this opportunity to express

what I love to do through both fields of study. I had to take an executive position and be creative

with what I wanted for my future. It was successful and by far worth it for the experience and

the outcome.

Data Analysis

Here is data I have taken and an analysis write up on all the NBA teams. As a team

manager, it is important to know how to create, understand, and interpret graphs. The Golden

State Warriors specifically stated, “The successful candidate will demonstrate the utmost

maturity, tech savviness, impeccable attention to detail and stellar organizational skills.” With

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this document, the future employer can see how I was able to be organized, tech savvy, and pay

utmost attention to detail.

Name 3pt % Wins

Atlanta Hawks 35 48

Boston Celtics 33.5 48

Brooklyn Nets 35.2 21

Charlotte Hornets 36.2 48

Chicago Bulls 37.1 42

Cleveland Cavaliers 36.2 57

Dallas Mavericks 34.4 42

Denver Nuggets 33.8 33

Detroit Pistons 34.5 44

Golden State Warriors 41.6 73

Houston Rockets 34.7 41

Indiana Pacers 35.1 45

LA Clippers 36.4 53

Los Angeles Lakers 31.7 17

Mephis Grizzlies 33.1 42

Miama Heat 33.6 48

Milwaukee Bucks 34.5 33

Minnesota Timberwolves 33.8 29

New Orleans Pelicans 36 30

New York Knicks 34.6 32

Oklahoma City Thunder 34.9 55

Orlando Magic  35 35

Philadelphia 76ers 33.9 10

Phoenix Suns 34.8 23

Portland Trail Blazers 37 44

Sacramento Kings 35.9 33

San Antonio Spurs 37.5 67

Toronto Raptors 37 56

Utah Jazz 35.5 40

Washington Wizards 35.8 41

PROBABILITY OUTPUT

Percentile 3pt %

1.666666667 31.7

5 33.1

8.333333333 33.5

11.66666667 33.6

15 33.8

18.33333333 33.8

21.66666667 33.9

25 34.4

28.33333333 34.5

31.66666667 34.5

35 34.6

38.33333333 34.7

41.66666667 34.8

45 34.9

48.33333333 35

51.66666667 35

55 35.1

58.33333333 35.2

61.66666667 35.5

65 35.8

68.33333333 35.9

71.66666667 36

75 36.2

78.33333333 36.2

81.66666667 36.4

85 37

88.33333333 37

91.66666667 37.1

95 37.5

98.33333333 41.6

Regression Statistics

Multiple R 0.64216692

R Square 0.41237836

Adjusted R Square 0.39139187

Standard Error 1.38553634

Observations 30

ANOVA

df SS MS F Significance F

Regression 1 37.72176029 37.7217603 19.64970843 0.00013046

Residual 28 53.75190638 1.91971094

Total 29 91.47366667

Coefficients Standard Error t Stat P-value Lower 95% Upper 95% Lower 95.0% Upper 95.0%

Intercept 31.9086524 0.800797929 39.8460725 3.32011E-26 30.26829216 33.5490126 30.2682922 33.5490126

Wins 0.08214669 0.018531562 4.43279916 0.00013046 0.044186508 0.12010687 0.04418651 0.12010687

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The Golden State Warriors were known as the best three-point shooting team in the

2015-2016 season, due to their star players like Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson. After

watching them win the championship I was curious to see the effect on the number of games

Descriptive Statistics Descriptive Statistics

3pt % Wins

Mean 35.2766667 Mean 41

Standard Error 0.3242563 Standard Error 2.53481505

Median 35 Median 42

Mode 35 Mode 48

Standard Deviation 1.77602488 Standard Deviation 13.8837538

Sample Variance 3.15426437 Sample Variance 192.758621

Kurtosis 4.65348306 Kurtosis 0.39213242

Skewness 1.3594412 Skewness 0.01093376

Range 9.9 Range 63

Minimum 31.7 Minimum 10

Maximum 41.6 Maximum 73

Sum 1058.3 Sum 1230

Count 30 Count 30

Confidence Level(95.0%) 0.66317859 Confidence Level(95.0%) 5.18427889

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

0 10 20 30 40 50

Scatter: Average 3pt % of each team vs. Wins

0

50

100

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29

Three Point Percentage effect on NBA Teams Wins in 2015-2016 Season

3pt % Wins

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won compared with the team’s average three-point percentage field goals that are made. I

believe that the higher the three point made field goals percentage is then the higher the number

of won games will be. I can possibly run into some problems if there is a team with a high three-

point percentage and a very low number of games won, and vice versa. My population includes

all NBA teams and the two variables I am comparing are the average of three-point percentage

field goals made of each team and the number of wins for each team for the NBA 2015-2016

season.

To collect my data, I used the website:

http://stats.nba.com/teams/traditional/#!?Season=2015-16&SeasonType=Regular%20Season.

They have all the data set up for each NBA team so it is easy to find. Once I collected all

my data I entered it into an Excel workbook. The first thing I created in the Excel book was a

table of Descriptive Statistics. Here I found that the mean and median for both three-point

percentage and number of wins were almost equal. This tells me that the data will be spread out

symmetrically about the mean. Another thing that caught my eye however was the Standard

Deviation of both variables. Both values were quite low, looking at a value of 1.77 and 13.89.

This also proves that the data will be more symmetrical. I also created a scatterplot of the data to

try and see the relation through a graphing format. Analyzing the scatterplot, it shows that my R

value is closer to 1 therefore my data is strongly, positively correlated. In the bar graph

presented it represents that on average the teams with higher three-point percentages had a higher

number of wins compared to the teams with lower three-point percentages. The top two teams

with highest three-point percentage also led the league in wins. However, there are some teams

with fairly high three-point percentages that have a very low number of total wins. This could

result in determining that these two variables are not related.

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Next I set up a two-tailed hypothesis test because I wanted to test the relationship

between the average number of three-pointers made and a team’s overall success, their number

of wins. I chose a 95% confidence interval with a degree of freedom of 28 and a tSTAT of

1.0267. In conclusion, I failed to reject Ho because there was insufficient evidence of a

difference in means, therefore there is no significant evidence of a relationship between three-

point percentage and their overall number of wins.

Next I added regression statistics and input a regression line to summarize the

relationship between my two variables. Looking over this it shows that there is no relationship

between the two variables.

When I was starting this project, I was sure that there was going to be a relationship

between the two variables, however, after doing some tests and analyzing my data I can now see

that there is not a relationship between three-point percentage and number of wins. Being a

basketball player myself I knew that a 3-pointer is the most that can be scored at one time. I

thought if the three-point percentage was very high than the number of wins would relate off

that. I came to the realization that even though it would seem wins would be related to three-

point percentage, they are not. In conclusion, there is no direct correlation between made three

pointers and number of wins.