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Discovering Your Profession

We won our first two games and had dreams of advancing far into the tournament. I played well, reinforcing my goal to become a professional ballplayer. Game 3 did not go so well. I struck out once and hit a dribbler to the pitcher before I was taken out of the game. I couldn’t hit the curve ball. My dream of becoming a professional baseball player shattered at an early age. It was time to consider a new profession.

During High School one of my many jobs was with the Alden’s Catalog Company. They offered me a position as a Manager Trainee upon graduation. I thought this was going to be a great opportunity until I noticed all the managers had Rolaids, Tums, or Maalox on their desks. After having second thoughts on the manager trainee position, I decided to register for college, but I didn’t know what classes to take.

I was discussing my options with my friend Eddie Connelly when he said to me "you are good at planning things." I had been very involved in our church teen club planning dances, trips, sporting events, and entertainment. Eddie suggested why don’t you get a degree in recreation. My first reaction was "Wow; you can go to college for recreation?" I had no idea that was possible.

When I broke the news to my parents that I decided to go to college, my father’s first words were "you will pay for it yourself." Then he asked me what was going to be my major. I proudly replied Recreational Leadership. He quickly shot back "I can get you a real job in the trades." I reminded him how many repair jobs I had botched up, and he agreed I was pretty useless when it came to fixing something.

With reluctant support from my parents, I headed off to college in pursuit of a degree in parks and recreation. My roommate in college, Mike Kudla, was also a parks and recreation major. He originally attended college pursuing another degree, but after taking a recreation class he decided to change his major. This is not uncommon and why we are often referred to as a discovery major.

Probably most of us in the field of parks and recreation never aspired to be in this field as a child, but discovered it at some point in life. Many of us made this discovery through a summer job at our local park district or recreation department.

Now is the time you can help someone discover parks and recreation as a career. Talk to your summer staff about the profession and what options are available to them. IPRA provides a video titled "Parks and Recreation: A Career for Life" that can be downloaded from the IPRA website. You can show this video during your summer employee orientation program. Not everyone can just discover this field. Sometimes we can provide a little assistance. There are a whole lot of us out there that can’t hit the curve ball and we need to discover a new profession.

- John Curran, IPRA Chairman

Ancel, Glink, Diamond, Bush, DiCianni & Rolek, P.C.

536 East Avenue, LaGrange, IL 60525 | Phone: 708-588-2280 | Fax : 708-354-0535