Because the Boston Red Sox play 81 away games every season, it’s tempting to think that when the hometown team is on the road, there’s nothing going on at Fenway Park. No bright lights. No Fenway Franks. No “Sweet Caroline.”
Actually, baseball is just one of dozens of activities that take place at what author John Updike called “a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark.” Indeed, that little bandbox has as many as 17 events going on every week in the summer, everything from concerts to fashion shows to baby showers for players’ wives.
In the middle of it all this past summer was Anja Wight, Class of 2027. A double major in marketing and management with a concentration in sports marketing, Wight completed an 11-week internship on the Fenway Park Events team and took advantage of every opportunity. She coordinated 700-person company outings. She hung out with Savannah Bananas players in the dugout when the comic, dancing baseball team came to town. She helped with community events. She put up holiday decorations for an event called Christmas in July. She gave VIP tours of the press box and the Green Monster—she even got to go inside the famed Fenway Park scoreboard.
She worked over 50 hours a week and sometimes 10-12 days in a row. But for this diehard New England sports fan, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
“It was a remarkable learning experience,” says Wight. “It felt like I was going to school.”
So good! So good!
Wight especially appreciated how helpful all the Fenway staff were, letting her ask a million questions and work on as many events as she wanted. “Pretty much on Day One of my internship I had an event and they were, like, ‘OK, go learn.’”
Wight, who’s active with Suffolk in the Hub, the Business School’s student-run marketing agency, and works as a career ambassador for the University’s Center for Career Equity, Development & Success, says that the immersive nature of her Fenway internship is right on brand for her college experience.
“I feel like Suffolk is experiential learning, right? That’s our whole thing,” Wight says. “Fenway Park is the same. I got to be hands on in the oldest, most famous ballpark in the world.”
Wight says she’s eager to take her Fenway experience and do something great with it. “My dream for years and years has been to expand access to sports,” she says. “We need to make sure that people—young girls, especially—have access to athletics because it’s so important.”
As Wight prepares to start her third year at Suffolk, the memory of having all access to every part of Fenway Park will stay with her forever. “I’m a sports nerd from the depth of my soul,” she laughs. “So the fact that I got to work in that space was remarkable.”
Contact
Greg Gatlin
Office of Public Affairs
617-573-8428
Ben Hall
Office of Public Affairs
617-573-8092