D1 Boston, Burlington, MA
This summer I worked as an intern for D1 Boston, a sports training facility based in Burlington, Mass., dedicated to the athlete and helping them achieve their athletic goals. D1 was founded in 2003 by Will Bartholemew, a former University of Tennessee American Football player who wanted somewhere that he could train in the offseason that reflected how he trained in season. D1 has numerous locations across the country, and they are known for their commitment to their athletes through their pro-athlete partners, players such as Peyton Manning (former NFL quarterback and Hall of Famer), Chris Paul (NBA point-guard and future Hall of Famer) and Von Miller (former Superbowl MVP). Together these athletes help create a place where athletes and non-athletes alike become inspired to be the version of themselves that they have always wanted to be.
The first and largest project I worked on this summer had me compiling and analyzing high school fitness metrics. Focusing mostly on football, I was able to take the fastest times or highest/farthest jumps of around 10,000 high school football players from eight different city football combines to make a referenceable Excel sheet. The purpose of this project was to give coaches and other members of the D1 team a way to help high schoolers understand how much faster they need to be or how much higher they need to jump in order to be elite and play D1 sports.
For another project I scoured the internet to find sporting events and community events for D1 Boston to be a part of. I was able to find multiple possible events, but the next step was to contact the organizers and schedule calls or meetings both alone and with my supervisor to see if some sort of sponsorship would be possible. I also scheduled Zoom meetings between event organizers and my GM, and these meetings showed me a slightly different perspective of the business world.
This summer reinforced my interests in data and data analysis. I have always loved taking something and turning it into something different and more useful, and that is essentially how I feel about data. In my first project, I took the data of over 10,000 high school football players and turned it into a single, usable sheet for coaches to use as a benchmarking tool at D1. I really enjoyed analyzing my findings using R, a statistical data software I learned to use at Williams. It has also reminded me that I do want to pursue a career in something related to data analysis or even data science, as looking at and trying to understand what the numbers meant was almost therapeutic.
I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Case for giving me the opportunity to do something that I genuinely enjoy doing. Thank you very much.