Last month, the Harker CareerConnect club took students to Oracle Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, for a look into the inner workings of the team’s business operations and to gain an up-close perspective of the scale of running pro sporting events. “The visit gave us a close look at how the sports industry works and how business, passion and teamwork all come together to run a major league team,” said CareerConnect representative Aanya Shah, grade 12.

During the tour, the students visited facilities such as the batting cages, dugout and locker room. They were also gifted baseballs that saw use in a previous Giants game and met with Bill Schlough, the Giants’ chief information officer, who “told us about his journey with the Giants and how he started out in consulting and had a pretty roundabout way of getting into his job, but always knew he was passionate about sports,” said senior Sofia Shah. “His story showed us that if you keep doing what you are passionate about and put in the effort, things are going to work out for you. He also explained to us how the industry functions behind the scenes and expanded our view that it’s not just the team on the field, but so many different moving parts that we normally don’t see.”