Getting Ahead of the Game

A man sits at a desk with an open laptop.

(Photo: Brent Clark)

Gavin Nevill, MSM’13 (Metro)

By Rebecca Maxon

When Gavin Nevill, MSM’13 (Metro), was offered a graduate assistant position with the Division I Knights athletics office, he knew FDU was the right place to get his master’s degree in sports management.

“I grew up playing sports and being interested in media,” says Nevill. As an undergraduate student, he played two years of Division III soccer at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pa., and majored in communications. He worked in the school’s athletic communications office writing bios and game recaps, creating game programs, tracking statistics and doing some announcing at games. All of that experience came in handy as he pursued his graduate studies.

There were certainly challenges along the way, working long hours in the athletics department, attending classes and completing assignments, he says. “But it was worth all the time and effort. I really liked the small class sizes, and it was fun to be in class with people in different stages of their careers like head coaches and assistant coaches plus others looking to kickstart their careers like me.”

Studying sports management gave Nevill a new perspective. “After you take a couple of sports management classes,” he says, “you’ll never just go to an event and watch the game like you did before.”

Since completing his FDU degree, he’s worked in the Division I Mountain West Conference at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii, and the Division I Southeastern Conference men’s basketball program at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., among others. “FDU played a huge part in helping me achieve those goals.”

Most of his career has been in “digital media space,” with previous stints in media relations, social media management and content creation. He is currently a marketing project manager for the Ladies Professional Golf Association.