Have a passion for sports? Here’s a Look at Select Professions Within the Industry

Are you a high school student with a huge passion for sports, but maybe don’t have the chops to go pro one day? Do you dream of one day working in this multimillion dollar industry?

Lucky for you, there are pre-college online courses available to you that are not only exciting, interactive, and intriguing, but courses that might someday translate into a sports-related career choice. Let’s take a look. 

The Columbia Business School enrichment program offers a program, The Business of Sports, that is designed to cover the business side of the exciting world of sports. You’ll hear firsthand from team owners and sports executives. Study the impact of sports, sports business management, collective bargaining, how a franchise accrues valuation, and how major stadiums are financed. 

Wake Forest University offers the course Sports Medicine: An Inside Look at The Major Injuries and Treatments. In this course, you’ll focus on 3 common injuries — ACL tear, shoulder dislocation, and concussion. Plus, you’ll learn about traumas and treatments of star athletes. This online course is a must if you seek a future career in the field — from orthopedic surgeon to athletic trainer.

Biomedical engineering can be applied to sports in a variety of ways, including the development of cardiovascular and weight training regimens for athletes, advancing sports medicine with the creation of ergonomic prosthetics with biocompatible materials, and monitoring systems for recovering injuries. For kids interested in science and sports, the University of Rochester offers a pre-college online course in this innovative field. This online course, Biomedical Engineering: Solving The Body’s Challenges With Technology, teaches you how to marry the techniques of engineering to biology and medicine. You'll identify the stages of engineering design, how to measure, collect, and display data, and delve into topics around medical innovation. If you’re interested in a future in engineering or healthcare, this course is for you.

Cracks, breaks, and replacements. All are conditions that affect the bones, and all are treated by specialists in orthopedics. University of Rochester offers a pre-college online course in this fascinating field. In Orthopedic Medicine: Treatments & Surgery, you’ll study trauma; total joint replacement for the knee; and injuries of the foot, hip, and ankle. Lastly, you’ll learn the most common orthopedic conditions, how they present in the body, and the broad range of operative and non-operative treatments available. If you think orthopedics could be in your future, this course is for you.

Physiology is the study of how the systems work together in a healthy body, and what can go wrong. This is highly relevant in the sports world, as sports physiologists study how exercise alters the body. The pre-college online course from Rice University, Physiology: The Foundations of Medicine, provides a deep dive into the nervous, muscular, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems and how they work in harmony. Hear from practicing physicians who will describe the pathological complications they may encounter.

As you can see, there are tons of options to test out sports-related fields while you’re still in high school. Who knows, you might someday work in one of these professions!