Mr. Maxwell (R), Contributors Lily Smith (C) and Sam Morris (L) pose for a picture. 

By: Lily Smith and Sam Morris

Lily Smith is a second-year undergraduate at BGSU from Oregon, Ohio. She is majoring in Sport Management with a Marketing minor. She is passionate about all things women’s sports, and all things women in sports. 

Sam Morris is from Madison Heights, Michigan, and is an undergraduate student at BGSU majoring in Sport Management. He has a passion for sports writing and journalism. In his free time, he also performs, writes, and produces his own raps for the music industry club at BGSU.

October 11, 2024

Kicking off Bowling Green State University’s 2024 Homecoming was the Academy of Distinguished Alumni event. This event highlighted past BGSU alumni and their accomplishments. 

The event was held on September 26th at 6pm in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union Ballroom, and it recognized Larry Benz, Seshadri Tangutur, and Jeff Witjas as the most recent alumni to be inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Alumni.

Although the three distinguished alumni inductees were the main stars of the event, others, like their families, their friends, deans, professors, other BG alums, students, and a few former Distinguished Alumni recipients also attended the induction. 

One of the former Distinguished Alumni who was at the ceremony was the founder of the Maxwell Media Watch, 2018 inductee, Dick Maxwell (above). Maxwell graciously invited both of us to go to the event which turned out to be a night full of networking, great food, great speeches, and an overall great night. 

Sam’s Perspective

Before guests took their seats, Mr. Maxwell introduced us to many people, which was a fantastic way to network with BG alums who are now professionals in the sports field. One professional to whom I spoke was ESPN and ABC Sports former producer, Peter Englehart (below) who explained how making connections with people throughout your academic professional journey will get you to where you want to go. This was the case with him, as he became a producer for 2 of the largest sports production stations. Englehart is not only a great professional figure but also, like Maxwell, in 2015, he was inducted into the BGSU Academy of Distinguished Alumni. 

After taking our seats, we began to network with people at our table. I talked a lot with Dawn Shinew, the dean of the EDHD college, who helped me contact with Curtis Danburg, the Cleveland Guardians VP of Communications and Community Impact. This connection was great for me to have as I now have a future Zoom call with him scheduled after the MLB playoffs end.  

I also talked with Erik Hildebrand, BGSU’s Associate AD for compliance. He was another interesting BG professional because he had extensive knowledge on how NIL works in college athletics which I thought was really cool to be able to get input on. 

Lily’s Perspective

Before the event even began, Sam and I sat down and spoke with Mr. Maxwell about updates in our lives and our journeys in sport. Mr. Maxwell was very interested to hear about our current internships and future opportunities. I found this very endearing and welcoming when it came to my first in-person interaction with Mr. Maxwell. He was super engaged and interested to hear about our different experiences. 

Once the event began, I sat next to Jordan Cravens (below). She is a BGSU alumnae herself (’09, ’13), but is now HHS Senior Director of Development. We chatted about her experiences in the masters of Sport Administration program, as well as her time working with the BGSU Volleyball Team. It was very encouraging to hear insights about the sport industry from another woman in this space. We talked about the transition from the sports world into the fundraiser world, where a lot of the same skills can be applied. This was appealing to me because I am interested in the marketing/public relations side of sports, which is similar to her current position. 

Overall Thoughts

Overall, we thought the event was a great networking opportunity for alums, and luckily enough, for us, to participate in. We personally got a lot of value out of it because we made multiple professional connections and got to see so many different sports careers and perspectives. 

As for the actual Distinguished Alumni themselves, we thought all 3 did a fantastic job with their speeches and they all seemed to have wonderful careers in their respective fields.