Duke, NC State and UNC…them’s fightin’ words around here. Loyalty to your favorite university sports team is just part of growing up in North Carolina. What do you do if you are a graduate of NC State, UNC and work for Duke? That’s the unique situation that Kerr Vance Academy graduate John Averette finds himself in.
Averette, who was a guest on Wednesday’s SportsTalk, started off as an undergraduate at NC State. “Getting into sports management at NC State was an accident,” Averette said. He was thinking about going into business but was placed in the sports management program. “I didn’t know anything about it,” Averette added.
During his time with the Wolfpack, he interned with Wolfpack Sports Properties and when he completed his time at NC State he moved over to UNC to work with the Rams Club as an intern. Once he graduated from UNC, he went into the job market where he landed a position with the Iron Dukes.
“I do a lot of fundraising,” Averette said. According to Averette, sports management is more than just fund raising. “There are hundreds of people behind the scenes,” he said. All of the athletic events and people fall under the sports management umbrella.
Averette credits Kerr Vance Academy for giving him the foundation to succeed in his current profession. “They are a great school for having a college prep environment. They teach the little things to get you ready for the college environment,” Averette said. They just don’t teach you who to pull for.
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