S3 Graduate Profile: Todd Pollock

What got you to Baylor?

I went to high school in New Hampshire and spent my freshman year at Providence College in Rhode Island, but it was liberal arts and too cold up there. I did some research on business school rankings and found Baylor. I read about the Sports Sponsorship and Sales program, and that hooked me from the beginning. I went to Waco that summer, loved the campus and transferred in my sophomore year.

How did Baylor’s S3 program prepare you professionally?

First of all, they put you through the ringer. You go through sales calls and presentations. You get real-world experience. They do project calls with real professional sports teams where you’re calling people from the team's database and trying to sell tickets. When you come out of S3, you have a good sense of what it's like on a daily basis--that there is revenue to be brought in and you're responsible for managing your accounts and increasing business. The second thing is their network. Drs. Wakefield and Lehnus have phenomenal connections. I wouldn't be where I am today without the S3 program. It's very difficult to send your résumé to a professional sports team blindly. You're frankly not going to get in without the connections and the experience. In my position now, I get hundreds of résumés a month, and it's hard to break through without connections. And the S3 program prepares you. They put you in a position to be successful.

What has it meant to you--a member of the initial S3 class--to see the program succeed and grow?

They built that program from nothing. It's like what I'm doing here. They had a dream and a vision of creating this program. They shot big, they dreamt big, and frankly the proof is in the numbers. At this point, they have an extensive pipeline of graduates, and I don't think it's going to slow.