ST. GEORGE — Utah Tech University students in the Recreation and Sport Management Program had a touchdown of an opportunity last weekend during the Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas, Nevada.

These students were paid to work the Fan Experience at Mandalay Bay as well as outside Allegiant Stadium on gameday in conjunction with the Las Vegas Hosting Committee.

Saturday’s Fan Experience employed 24 students who covered entrance supervision, helped guide the crowd to various interactive experiences such as player meet and greets or kicking field goals and competing in running back obstacle courses, and took pictures of fans with the NFC and AFC championship trophies and the Lombardi Trophy.

The idea of getting students down to work the Super Bowl began as just that: an idea. Then came along Dr. Jin Woo Ahn.

Jin Woo Ahn is an assistant professor who was hired at Utah Tech two years ago. But he’s already making his presence known. With his extended network, he was able to connect with consultants working for the NFL.

Joseph Lovell, an associate professor and program director at Utah Tech University, along with Ahn, wanted to do more experiential learning in the program.

“We talked about this when he got hired two years ago,” Lovell said. “Once it was announced that the Super Bowl was going to be here in Las Vegas, he jumped on it.”

Off the students went to Mandalay Bay for the Fan Experience and Allegiant Stadium for the Super Bowl.

Some 30,000 people circulated through that venue for the Fan Experience on Saturday, Lovell said.

He and his students were not the only school that made pilgrimage to Las Vegas, but Utah Tech’s alone got to experience the sports management side.

“The majority of the other programs are all doing it on a volunteer basis,” Lovell said. “Our guys are actually hired by the NFL. We were paid employees of the NFL, working the biggest event of the most powerful sports league in the country.”

The shift for Sunday’s Super Bowl began while most of the workforce was still fast asleep.

“I was there at Allegiant Stadium from 3 a.m. to 11 a.m. That was the most challenging part,” said Utah Tech student Kysen Covington. “It was freezing cold outside, but it was a great experience to be able to work on game day.”

Some shifts extended to during the game, meaning they weren’t able to watch it because they were working elsewhere around the arena.

“You might have a glimpse here and there,” Lovell said. “But you’re not gonna be watching the game.”

However, there were upsides to it, too. One perk was that those who were done working for the day at 11 a.m. had free time in Las Vegas.

Covington used his time to explore.

“I got off my shift early enough to go around the UNLV (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) campus and ended up in Allegiant Stadium,” he said. “It was a surreal moment.”

Others that were done at 11 a.m. went back to their hotels or their local family’s homes and caught the game on television.

Each day of the weekend was filled to the brim with activities. Super Bowl on Sunday, Fan Experience Saturday, but perhaps the most important of them all is that Friday was the Shuffle Networking Event at UNLV.

For most students there, it was their first opportunity to cut their teeth in the sporting world. The event was a networking opportunity with other students where representatives from NFL teams, Professional Bull Riders, New Era, and other segments of the sports industry were present.

Lovell described it as a platform to make connections in the sporting world.

“They’ve made it very clear that this is not a job fair,” Lovell said. “They exchanged information, LinkedIn profiles, and can use one another as assets going forward.”

It lasted several hours and featured keynote speakers and panels aimed at fostering networking opportunities.

“I was more excited about that than actually working the Super Bowl,” Lovell said.

Despite a weekend full of lifelong memories, it made the students hungrier for more, Covington said. He hopes that the university does everything it can to make this happen again.

“I hope that everything that we did this year gives us the chance to do it again next year in New Orleans,” Covington said.

Utah Tech’s tagline is exactly what these students accomplished in Vegas, Lovell said.

“We’re trying to do active life and active learning,” he said. “It doesn’t get more active than this.”

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