SEAT Global Magazine - Exclusive Interviews of Global Sport Executive Issue 09 March/April 2018 | Page 65

What was the inspiration around writing Dugout Wisdom? I love this book!

That was 10 years ago if you can believe that. I have a wonderful friend, mentor, angel in my life, a guy by the name of Roland Hemond, and Roland probably has spent 60 years in Major League Baseball.

We were doing consulting work for the Baseball Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame, very high-profile organization, incredible stewards of the game and integrity, and they were looking at some non-traditional ways to generate revenue, and that's really I think what our focus is as marketers and how do you take these players and better scale them. We had done some work with St. Jude's Children's Hospital and Marlo Thomas had written a book called The Right Advice at the Right Time, where she interviewed remarkable people of life-changing advice that they got all told in the first person, so we referenced as a fundraiser.

I basically pitched that idea to the Hall of Fame and Roland said, "Hey, I think we should interview from the first person each of the Baseball Hall of Famers, of a moment in their life where they received great advice, wisdom, et cetera," and they said, "We love it and you should write it."

I never really intended that that would happen and I ended up getting to spend a day with about 60 Hall of Famers individually over the course of about a year and a half. I learned a lot about persistence, doing the right thing, listening to your coaches, your mentors, and just that never-give-up mentality that a lot of these guys represented. I got goosebumps just sitting down with the likes of Willie Mays, Whitey Ford, my childhood hero Ryne Sandberg, and all of those guys and just learned a lot about work ethic, and we raised a lot of money for a great cause along the way.

No part of that felt like work, but that was another storytelling example of where life can take you.

DAN MIGALA INTERVIEW

Well, I think at the core, whether it goes back to the Bears days, the reporters, or even launching our own business, I always felt like a teacher and Northwestern ... I had actually taught a digital revenue class that was a one-week course at Arizona State at the time that I was writing the book in their MBA program, and as a result of that had just a passion for giving back in learning. Northwestern wanted to start a sports graduate business program and they asked me to help launch it, and I was able to do that, design the curriculum. It was really an efficient part-time role, but I'm really proud of the impact.

I've got a lot of students that would have went through those early days that have made a career out of the business of sports, and probably one of the great joys to give back and then to do it again.

Very similar with the Chicago Bears, to do it for such a great school in your hometown, was a great joy and an honor to do that.

What an amazing way to tell their stories! In the next phase of your career, you were the director of graduate school sports administration at Northwestern University. What were your key career learnings from that experience?

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