Professional players may be the first ones who come to mind when people think of careers in sports, but Columbus Bishop Hartley High School students are learning that there are lots more opportunities in the athletics field to consider.
“Not everyone is going to be LeBron James or Patrick Mahomes,” said Bobb Farrell, a business teacher who conducts a class in sports management, mostly for juniors and seniors.
Farrell recently brought in Julius Palazzo, longtime commissioner of the boys Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) program for the Columbus diocese, to speak to the students about the number of sports-related careers they can consider.
“Having Mr. Palazzo come in as a guest speaker … was a no brainer,” he said. Besides his work for the diocese, Palazzo, 70, has been an Ohio high school basketball, baseball and football official and was a coach and teacher for 45 years at his alma mater, Columbus St. Mary Magdalene School.
Palazzo encouraged the students to consider officiating as a means of earning money. “I tried to sell them (on the fact) that it’s flexible,” he said. “As opposed to dealing with a boss at a fast-food place, you can get your officiating license as a freshman and the pay is getting much, much better now, so they can earn much, more than some part-time jobs.”
Palazzo said officiating is a good way to stay connected to sports for anyone whose athletic career ended in high school. “If they go to college, they can (officiate) in whatever town they’re in,” he said. “There are a lot of advantages and you can take the course (to get certified) online now. There’s a need (for them) in just about every sport. It’s gotten to a point where sometimes games are canceled because they (don’t) have enough officials.”
To familiarize students with the wide range of responsibilities that come along with managing an athletic team, Farrell has assigned them tasks such as organizing a travel baseball team’s budget, promoting a particular team on social media and designing players’ uniforms.
The class also has examined the role of athletics as part of the overall objectives of Catholic schools. “I told them that I wanted (an assignment) done in the cooperation of what a Catholic school team would do, which is very different from how a public school team would run things,” Farrell said.
In addition to discussing officiating, Palazzo spoke to Farrell’s students about the necessity of having an automated external defibrillator (AED) medical device accessible during sporting events.
The device, which can restore an unconscious individual’s heartbeat, saved Palazzo’s life in 2012 after he collapsed on the field and stopped breathing while officiating a football game at Hartley against Columbus Bishop Watterson. “I just remember everything going fuzzy,” he said, “and they said I fell like a tree, straight down.”
Medics were present at the game along with doctors and three priests, who administered the Sacrament of Anointing the Sick. The public address announcer led the crowd in praying the rosary. Use of the AED helped Palazzo regain consciousness.
“I ended up going to the hospital and had bypass surgery,” he said.
A year later, he was back to officiating.
The next time Farrell’s sports management class met after Palazzo’s presentation, the school nurse at Hartley showed the students how an AED device is used. Farrell said part of his motivation for bringing in Palazzo, in addition to discussing his career, was to show his students class the real possibility that they may one day have to use a lifesaving medical device.
Another segment of Farrell’s course requires students to attend a high school athletic event, preferably at Hartley. “They were required to give me a two- to three-paragraph description of what they liked at the event and what they did not,” Farrell said. “We are now going to roll up their results and present (them) to our administration and athletic director (to see) what we can do to make our fan experience better.”