Gainesville, Florida — Florida football scholar-athletes don’t have much time throughout the season to think about their future careers. However, during spring break, 12 Gators were given the opportunity to explore the possibilities in Los Angeles through GatorMade.
The seven-day trip included professional development excursions to Showroom LA, Rodeo Drive, the NFL Network, the Los Angeles Lakers, Activision Blizzard, Google, Paramount Pictures Studios, and a meeting with the Southern California Gator Club.
The City of Angels is unfamiliar to most Gators, many of whom come from Florida or the South.
Savannah Bailey, GatorMade’s senior director of player relations, stated that the excursions are more about exposure than anything else.
“It was cool,” remarked running back Ja’Kobi Jackson. “LA was really different from Pensacola, where I’m from.”
Jackson has has an interest in staying in the game when his playing days are over.
“I still want to be in sports, but I want to be an agent,” he explained.
Jackson was attracted in by the NFL Network and the Los Angeles Lakers during the Gators’ tour to the city.
What he observed behind the scenes widened his vision.
“It’s not simply people chatting,” Jackson explained. “Everybody in the back who isn’t on television is working extremely hard.” “There are so many desks and laptops throughout the building.”
Tight end Hayden Hansen took part in both the trip to Los Angeles and the trip to New York City during spring break in 2023.
He wants to make maximum use of GatorMade’s resources.
“We went to the NFL in New York, but that was for business,” Hansen explained. “We went to the NFL Network’s headquarters in Los Angeles, which was the media side. It’s like night and day, yet in the same company.”
He was impressed by the tour of the NFL Network’s studio in Los Angeles.
“We went to the identical settings. If you were watching the NFL Network at the time, we were on television. “We walked behind Maurice Jones-Drew while he was talking,” Hansen explained. “There’s something I found interesting behind the camera as well.”
When asked about his future ambitions before being exposed to GatorMade, the “holistic development program” implemented by Gators coach Billy Napier when he took over, the redshirt-sophomore Hansen acknowledges that he “really didn’t think about it,most of us don’t.”
Hansen understands “the chance of making it to the league and how low it is,” but believes that he has “a shot at it.” However, Hansen is busy exploring other paths while he has the resources located in the same building as his locker.
“I’m still trying to find my passion, but GatorMade is definitely helping me see all styles of it.”
One field that interests Hansen is sales.
“[The Lakers] showed me a bunch of the sales part,” Hansen said. “The biggest thing they talked to us about was getting people in for the G-League games with the South Bay Lakers.”
Hansen also learned about sales by speaking with a Florida alumnus during the SoCal Gator Club networking event.
“He was walking me through the steps,” said Hansen. “He walked in as a sales rep and worked his way up to the executive wing as director of sales.”
Hansen was told that due to the competitive nature of sales, “they like former athletes.”
“That’s why I like sales so much,” Hansen said. “GatorMade has helped me find so many connections in that space.”
