Growing Up in Social Media: Caleb Mezzy's Career Journey

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
On episode 228 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil chatted
with Caleb Mezzy, Assistant Professor for Sport Management and Business at
Neumann University, founder of Grit & Glue [consultancy], and co-host of the
Beyond Baseball podcast.
What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To hear the full
interview and more, check out the podcast on all podcast platforms and at
www.dsmsports.net.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 228: Caleb Mezzy

Caleb’s Career Path
“When I was 13 years old, I thought I was gonna be a pro baseball player and then realized
quickly that I wasn't, and I was like, what can I do? We didn't have the beauty of LinkedIn,
we didn't have the networking that is all online now, and we didn't have the access to
people like we do now. And I just thought, ‘Hey, if I can't play, I might as well be an agent.’
“I'll never forget my dad circling a name in the Philadelphia Inquirer [telling me] ‘This is
an agent. If you would like to become one, here's a guy you should contact.’ And the name
was Leon Rose, who is now Head of Basketball Operations with the New York Knicks. But
at that time he was representing Allen Iverson. He got to Allen Iverson through Rick
Brunson, who is obviously [current NBA player] Jalen Brunson's father. And the whole
article kind of detailed his path to being an agent, going to Temple Law School after
Fairleigh-Dickinson and all that kind of stuff.

“So I remember being in high school and having my Nokia 5165 and calling Leon's
office [and] I honestly think I just found the number on Google or AOL or
something like that. I never got a hold of Leon — I kept calling and I was talking to
different secretaries [who said] ‘Oh, he'll call you back.’ He never did. And I kept
calling. I went through high school [and] was like, I still wanna be an agent and
went to college and ended up reading The Business of Sports Agents [book]...and
highlighting names, Googling the names and found one name in particular — a
guy [that] lived in Philly, Michael Siegel, and highlighted that name, emailed him
and said ‘I saw your name in this book, read it,’ all this stuff and kind of gave him
the 411 of what I gathered from that book to show him that I actually could read
and comprehend things. [I] scheduled a meeting with him and got an internship.

“So while I was at Temple I was doing that and really thought at that point in
my life that I was on the way to being an agent. But I saw a lot of things that
probably would get me arrested or at least canceled if social media and camera
phone videos were around then, so I realized I didn't like it, it was too
cutthroat. There was really no integrity and I couldn't do it. So I looked at
myself and said, ‘What skills do I have?’ I wanted to be a scout because I loved
writing reports on players, so I scouted a year with the Phillies locally in
Philadelphia and at the same time was working on building a branding side of
what I did. So social media, online branding, all that kind of stuff. This is 2008-
2009, so when social media was becoming this conglomerate that it is now.

“I did those both for a year [before realizing] I couldn't do scouting
because I never played collegiately [and] I didn't really have the acumen
or the way to just kind of articulate what a player was. But I was in
rooms with all these former players and I thought it was pretty cool. The
other thing I don't think I could have done was I couldn't have worked
for that little pay or for free. Then I started to make money doing digital
branding and working with athletes, personalities and all that kind of
stuff, and really loved it. I did that and started to find some jobs in e-
commerce locally and did that for probably about 6-8 years, started my
own agency and had some bigger name clients, bigger brands…

“I loved what I was doing and then at one point when I was like 26 or so I was
like I need health insurance. So I went to 160over90, which everybody now
knows is this gigantic branding agency. I started pretty much all their social
channels and their social department. I went in there for a meeting to see if I
could white label all their business and say, like, ‘Hey, you bring the clients to
me, I'll do all the social media.’ And the guy, who's no longer the CEO because
he got bought out, took me to a bar and made me an offer and was like, ‘Why
would we bring you in to do white label when we could just hire you?’ And I was
like ‘They're gonna win. They're gonna know that this is what I wanted to do
anyway. So he made me an offer…[and after negotiating a higher offer] I ended
up working there for 18 months and it was a really good experience.

“The 18 months accelerated who I was, what I became, the skills that I had it put into play. I
had the greatest client portfolio that you could think of, and really built up what 160over90 is
today. I mean there are so many things I could talk about with 160over90, but I'll tell you that
after working there for 18 months, I didn't like who I became. I was getting fatter, drinking
too much beer, trying to be a hipster I think too much, and was engaged to be married and
was like, ‘I don't think I could work 60 to 80-hour weeks and just be this unhealthy.
“So I was experiencing what people now think is a cool thing to say, which is burnout. I was
going through that stage and I was not who I thought I was, and I was going through therapy
and like all these other things. And I remember texting my sport marketing professor Julie
Lanzillo and saying ‘I need to get out. I need something else.’ And she runs the program I now
teach at. So she was very helpful. She was like, ‘Can you start Monday?’

“I came in and pinched hit [for] a class and I loved teaching to the
students. I loved being the person who could help them get to where
they wanted to be in their career, and I saw the need there of being a
liaison or acting as a bridge from the classroom to the industry because I
did have so many contacts and I did have such a robust network that
could help them. And after that [in 2015-2016], I ended up getting a full-
time job. I've been there since and I was able to get my master's [degree]
and I just finished my doctorate last August. I love what I'm doing. It's
crazy to say that whole story and just look back on how many years it's
been, but you've been there, so you've kind of heard some of it.”

On networking in the industry now vs. when Caleb was first starting out
“It's a very loaded question because the thing that you have to do
differently is you have to realize who you are. And that's so hard in this
world. There's so much noise. There's so much shit on social media.
There's so much shit in the world that a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, I'm a
little bit of this person, I'm a little bit of that person.’ They don't really
know truly who they are.

“That’s why we hear the phrase ‘authentic self’ right now. When I was reaching
out to Leon Rose I didn't know who I was yet. I was still becoming, I was in
emerging in adulthood. But I also never got a hold of him and there was no
medium for me to write a 280-character message to convey that the thing is
that if he would've answered and been like, ‘Why is this 14-year-old kid doing
this instead of trying to pick up girls at a high school dance?’ That would've
been my value is like no 14-year-old kid is doing that. So I think the thing that
we look at now is because the access is easy, because online and all you have to
do is create a platform is so easy everybody should be doing it. Not everybody
is, but there are so many people doing it, so when you do send that message,
when you do reach out, you have to figure out a way to get through, cut through
the noise, cut through all the other people. It's essentially like cutting through
the line to get to the front.

“You know, I was in the class the other day and I said, ‘How many of you would pick up the
phone and do this?’ And like three kids raised their hand — they're afraid to pick up the
phone. So maybe going back to that, picking up the phone is actually the competitive
advantage because nobody does it anymore. So I don't have one solidified answer because I
think it depends on the person, but sliding in the DMs seems to be the laziest way to do it
nowadays. However, if someone's DMs are open, why not? Like, why wouldn't you shoot
your shot?
“So I think that the way you answer it is to look at the person that you're trying to reach,
look at the industry that they're in, look at their age and how they're accessible. So if it's
someone in digital media, I think [what] might be the best way to do it is going through
digital media. But if it's someone who's maybe a CEO and they look like they might be busy,
I think picking up the phone is actually the best way to do it. Anytime you can plant mutual
connections or shared connections is definitely the best best way to do it, but that's not
always guaranteed.”

On growing up in the social media space as it matured into an integral business
channel and strategic area
“So the way I answer this question is I go back to a story about when I was
starting out in social and I remember interviewing for a company that's an e-
commerce company and it was not in sports. I was just doing it because not
many companies were hiring, but obviously an e-commerce company is more
suitable when everybody is hesitant about hiring for social, an e-commerce
company makes more sense because you're attracting and bringing people
digitally online to buy online, right? It makes sense. There's no foot traffic in
person, all that kind of stuff.

“So I was talking to this company and I remember them saying, ‘Alright,
you have a project and your project is you have to act like you're a brand
or take a brand that you've worked with and come up with their social
strategy.’ And I'm like, ‘Man, I really haven't done this yet.’ So what I did
was I said, you know what? I have [done it before] — I'm the brand. I
said ‘I currently have more followers on Twitter and every platform that
was accessible at that time than this company that I'm interviewing for,
so let me put myself against them.’

“And the reason why I did that — it's not to brag, because I don't think followers are the
bragging metric, but back then — this is like 2009-2010 — what metrics did we have? It
was the only metric that you would see, which was followers and shares, and replies
maybe. And that was the biggest vanity metric, that's why people were buying
followers. So I was like, that's what I'm gonna use. So I did this one, I [devised] Caleb
Mezzy LLC, basically, and I said ‘I'm gonna act like this [business].’ And I put my
picture up there and I'm like, ‘Listen, I don't have a product. I'm an ugly white guy. If I
could sell myself to get people to follow me and have interest and hang on every one of
the tweets I send out, I can do it for your company that actually has a product, that
actually is solving a problem, that has a use and a demographic that you're trying to
reach.’ And I think that when I did that, it was pretty, like, whoa, this is actually what
we need. It doesn't matter who the product is, this strategy will work.

“Going back to the strategy question, I've always liked writing and I've always
liked looking at things from an aerial view where you can say like, ‘Alright, what
are we trying to accomplish here?’ But I think that what happened with Twitter is
because everyone's like ‘We have to be there or Instagram or Facebook — we have
to be there, so let's just be there.’ And that being there is a tactical thing. There's
no strategy to being there. It's like going to a party [and saying] ‘I just wanna see
what's going on. Let me look around, stand with my back against the wall.’ But
what are you gonna do when you get there? What's the point of you being at this
party? You're trying to walk home with someone, you're trying to show off your
dance moves —what are you doing? And I was always thinking about that. I mean,
now, everybody says it on social media, but I remember saying it back then.

“It's like, what is the point here? Are we trying to find new people? Are
we trying to get people to generate website traffic? Are we trying to
control and monopolize our SEO? What are we trying to do? And that's
the way I looked at strategy because the tactical stuff is easy, you can
hire an intern to do it if you have a strategy, right? The tactical stuff is
like, ‘Alright, now that I have my strategy in place, now let's execute.’”

On the increased strategy in social media practice today
“I mean, I think that everybody does have a strategy in place now, [but] I don't know
how progressive it is, I don't know how outlandish it is. Talking from experience —
of the many reasons why I wanted to get out of social and I felt burnout is because
all these platforms kept coming up and then going away and coming up and then
going away. And I kind of like, I don't wanna say laugh, but I sigh every time I see
this TikTok media specialist who's getting hired because that's what it's become, it's
become sectored. And it should be like that because someone who is really good at
making content is a really good content creator, but someone who is really good at
making TikTok content is a totally different content creator, it really is.

“I mean, we remember this phase — I think we're out of it now — where, oh,
this is great content, let's post it to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all at the
same time. And now we don't see that and it's great. It's great that we don't see
that because that's where it became so super overwhelming, and I think that
when that shifted it's because they started to add people to their teams and it
wasn't one person doing it. But when it was one person doing it — that's why I
was leaving because I was like I can't keep up with these platforms. The
algorithms change all the time, the new platform comes up. We feel like we
have to be there instead of just focusing on what we do well. So the focusing on
what we do well is kind of what I was gonna say is the overarching strategy for
major companies.

“There's been so many years really…that they can now focus on social
media and say, ‘This is what we do well, and we're gonna continue doing
it’. We see, I think, the best performance of it is during the Super Bowl.
We see the brands that are snarky and they just take jabs, right? We see
the ones who come out with like, ‘Our commercial just [aired] and now
we're gonna do this post-commercial’ Or this play happened, let's, you
know, be on top of that. That's where you're seeing what they do well;
that it was just like, here's our performance…I think the key thing here is
I do think strategy in place and I do think teams are starting to evolve as
platforms evolve to fit what their needs are what they do best.”

About Caleb’s research into athletes and their post-playing careers
“So this is a really loaded question, just because I have so many different
ways I can take it. My research really started from my past experiences
and I was looking at the path that I went through — I explained [about
how] I wanted to be a player, then I wanted to be an agent — that I
worked with players and I saw this stuff. The continuing part there has
been [that] I love athletes. Like, I just love working with athletes, being
around athletes, people who have good work ethic — I loved it. So I tried
to figure out different ways that I could do that.

“And it's not like I'm a cleat chaser, it's more that I think that elite talent is
amazing. And I think that if you put elite talent with sports, it's like my bread and
butter, it’s what I love. So getting to know athletes on a personal level and seeing
they devote so much time and energy to their craft, whatever sport it may be, and
it's for such a short period of time, and then they kind of get left empty when it's
over. And it could be over at [age] 24, it could be over at 27, it could be over at 32,
35, or if you're Tom Brady 95, right? We see this happening every day.
“What I saw was that there was an opportunity in terms of the digital space for
athletes to create a brand for themselves. Now, many don't want to do it. Like the
Tim Duncans of the world, that's not their personality. But Tim Duncan actually
knows who he is and he knows where he's going to go after playing. He knew that
when he was a player and he knows that now. So I'm not gonna sit here [and say]
it's the opportunity that everybody has to take.

“I actually look at social differently now than I used to, which was you have to be on it. You have
to be on everything. You have to be present because if you're not, you're losing out on meeting
[this person] and that person and this opportunity and that opportunity. I look at LinkedIn as a
professional network and everything else is kind of just like a branding network. Yes, you can
brand yourself on LinkedIn — I find it to be a little obnoxious the way LinkedIn has become this
‘We're gonna write this microblog or novel and then you're gonna click see more…’I don't know
how LinkedIn became that.
“For me, LinkedIn is, an access point to professionals, right? And I feel the same way for
athletes. You are an athlete and, like you were saying with the student analogy, you are an
athlete for a period of time, you are a student for a period of time. When you're an athlete, you
have this open door to just say, ‘Hey, I'm a player on this team, I'm gonna be in this town, would
you like to meet?’ And you can meet any professional in the world.

“Going back to your question about my research — my research was really focused on
the career transition for athletes. I narrowed my focus to professional baseball players
because I feel like professional baseball players are a very oppressed category of
athletes. And I know that that word gets thrown around a lot, but I really do mean that
— all the recent news with Minor League Baseball and Major League Baseball should
hopefully change that. But Minor League Baseball players are misunderstood. People
don't understand what they go through. They don't understand what they do and how
they devote so much time and effort into playing and getting nothing for it, and what
they have to go through to get to the top. So I don't wanna go too far off on a tangent
with the recent news [about MiLB players unionizing], but I think what I wanted to
focus on was - how can I build a model that would help them to transition to life after
baseball?

“And that's exactly what I did. So I could talk more about that, but in
terms of how it goes hand in hand with digital media and networking
and all that kind of stuff, I think that that plays a role. I think that their
digital presence plays a role. I think that the ability to network and find
other people, other careers, kind of like the exploratory phase of career
development could really help them in their next phase in life.”

On the different approaches players can take to post-playing career planning
“So a lot of what I found — and again the research was narrowed to baseball
players — but I do think that there's an opportunity and I hope to do this in the
future where I can use this model and apply it to other sports, the same kind of
methodology I did the same way I went about it. But I think a lot of it is like
you're looking at the current situation, right? So I believe in my research that
the transition to retirement is an ongoing process. It's not a singular event,
although on Twitter Tom Brady retires [and] it's a tweet to everybody else. So
that's like, ‘Oh, I remember this moment, I remember where I was.’ And then
he comes back.

“But it's an ongoing process because the minute you get drafted or
signed and you're on a team, it's inevitable that you are going to retire.
There is not a single player besides Tom Brady and maybe Julio Franco
who can keep playing, right? You are going to be a former player longer
than an acting one, it's just a known fact. So at that point, when you
know it's an ongoing process, there are different things that you could be
doing along the way. A lot of that could be digital-focused, right? You
build up this audience so that when you do retire that you have an
audience that you could, sell wine to, or sell a house [to], I don't know
what it is, [it] depends on what their interests [are].

“But based off my research it was like looking at the situation right here. So I am a
single A player, I'm a double AA player, 26 years-old, whatever it may be, and going
from yourself right now to a professional self. It's not that you're not a professional
baseball player, because we know you are, you're getting paid to do it — but you're
looking at the situation and the person going into this professional thing.
“We actually ranked key factors along the way. I could give you those key factors,
but it would take up the rest of this podcast between all the stages. But one of the
things I will highlight here is strengths, weaknesses, and transferable skills. I think
transferable skills are such a huge part of athletes going into the
workforce…Because they work so hard to get here [and] they don't know how to
articulate the skills that they've acquired into a different [occupation]. So you look
at the key factors, the strengths, weaknesses, and transferable skills.

“The next part we look at is what strategies can we put in place? So is
networking a strategy? It can be, it depends on how you wanna do it. Is it
building up your Instagram following because you wanna sell a product or is it
because you want to do lessons like you were talking about? [For example] I
know somebody who is doing speed lessons, like how to increase your speed
and doing it on the basepaths and showing that stuff, so he's creating content
around that and that's great. If you wanna do something with NFTs and
blockchain, how can you create content around that? Maybe those are the
strategies. Maybe you can get, I don't know, 7 or 8AM coffee with some high-
ranking CEOs in California or in Arizona or Las Vegas, whatever it may be.
Those are strategies that we can put into place.

“The third one, which just so happens to be third base — if you can't tell
we're going around a diamond here — third base is what support you
have. So the scary thing is, and we've seen it with mental health and so
many different athletes, you need to have support along the way. It's not
going to be easy. It's definitely not gonna be a walk in a different park
once you leave playing sports. So do you have family around? Do you
have a spouse? Do you have kids? Do you have your grandparents? Are
you financially supported, do you need help there? Whatever it may be.

“The whole point of having that at third base is because if you have that
support, that's who's gonna get you back home. So that's the whole kind of
thing I've made because I believe that a lot of the research I did is great, and it's
all amazing, but if you can't articulate it and if you can't visualize it for a
baseball player or for their families who are gonna need my help, it doesn't
matter, because they're just gonna be like, ‘Oh, this guy wrote a dissertation just
cuz he wanted to graduate,’ and that's partially true. But at the same time, I
have some valuable information and this is how I wanna pitch it to you. So I
hope that answers your question… I do think that digital plays a role there. It's
just like we have to figure out how to get from that situation to your
professional self and how we can use it.

“I can give you so many examples of players who are doing it the right
way. But a lot of us see as fans we see the big names, like the Jeters and
what they're doing. But there are so many athletes who are doing this
the right way of like, ‘Hey, I'm gonna announce it's my retirement [and
now] I'm gonna go into this. Please continue to follow me…as I go into
this venture, into that venture, and I kind of find out who I'm going to be
in this professional setting.’”

On the diminishing power of being an athlete on social media in a crowded creator
space
“I think it comes back to what we always talk about with building a brand, which is [to]
add value. Be at a place where you know what you bring to the table, what value you
bring. And if it just so happens, you're an athlete. Whether you're a — I don't know how
to rank athletes — like if you're a grade one athlete versus a grade 10, whatever you are
on the scale and you just so happen to be an athlete.
“I know athletes who drink wine, like a CJ McCollum, for example, right? He's not
always just posting about basketball, he might be posting about his favorite wine or the
album he's listening to. tThat doesn't matter that he's CJ McCollum on the Portland
Trail Blazers or the New Orleans Pelicans — it doesn't matter, he’s CJ McCollum, this is
what he likes, so I think that's how he adds value to the conversation.

“That's one part. I think of a person like Tim Dillard. I don't know if you
remember him, but he was like a Minor League pitcher, hilarious dude. And
honestly, when content was starting as a buzzword, he was creating content.
Because he was a pitcher, [so] he didn't play every day, but he had access to Minor
Leaguers and would almost like recreate movie scenes that were hilarious. And I
don't know if he did it on his iPhone or a high-def camera and then he would post
them and he would call himself Dim Tiller as a joke, switching the first initials of
his first and last name. I look at a guy like that and I'm like, he had a career in
comedy. If he wanted to be like a Will Ferrell kind of comedian or actor, he could
have done it. I don't think that's what he is doing, I think he's doing broadcasting,
but he showcased his personality; and that's what value he [provided].

“I know a lot of players who have gone into like the financial or wealth management
world and they might put former player or washed-up baseball player in their bios
for LinkedIn or Twitter or something like that. But they don't lead with that, and I
think that's the thing. Because we always talk about identity and it's what you do, not
who you are. I think if you don't lead with it and you're like, ‘This is the value I bring
here,’ that's great. I'm thinking of all these different players as we're talking about it,
because like that player I'm talking with the financial and wealth management,
they're gonna be posting about how to manage your taxes for the upcoming season.
Or if you're a MLB player who just got drafted, ‘this is what you should do with your
first paycheck.’ So he's looking at it from both lenses — I manage wealth and
finances, but I also come at it from I was a former baseball player.

“I look at someone like [NBA player] Matisse Thybulle who, when he
was in the [NBA] bubble, did all this YouTube content because he likes
to make those videos. He doesn't lead with, like, ‘What's up I’m a
basketball player. You don't have what I had. You can't be me.’ He's like,
‘You want insight into my world?’ That's the value he brings. So I think
that’s the simple answer — what value do you bring? The hard part is
how do you have that conversation so that someone can figure out what
value they bring?

“That's the really hard part. Because a lot of people would be like, ‘Well,
I'm a third baseman for the Yankees. Like, why do they care? Or like,
why should I do that? They already come here and yell at me at the
Stadium.’ So I think those kinds of conversations in terms of developing
what that is both as a player, but then also when you retire, is probably
the tougher part. And I think it really comes back to a key part in adding
value for anybody, which is what are you interested in? If you can figure
that part out and share it with the world, you will start to build a
community around those interests, because it's very seldom that you
have an interest that nobody else is interested in.”

On how much athletes do or do not lean into their ex-athlete brand and identity
“I mean, the word ‘exploit’ is an interesting one because it has a negative
connotation. I like the leverage piece of it because I think the leverage is a good
story to tell, but again, it's not who you are, it's what you did at that point in the
conversation. I think that in talking to athletes there were some that were like,
‘I worked at this government job, for example, and they found out that I had a
Baseball Reference page;’ like, that comes up in conversation. They're like,
‘Well, why didn't you tell me?’ And they were like, ‘I don't wanna lead with that
because then I'm now branded as a former baseball player.’ Nobody really
wants to be the former anything, unless you're like, you know, Mr. Mrs.
Swimsuit model or Bodybuilder. Like, nobody wants to be that. But at the same
time, it is part of your story.

“Going back to the adding value piece — this is becoming who you are. You're always
becoming, you're always growing, you're always working towards something. And I
think in that sense of, ‘Hey, I work in financial advising or I work in real estate, I was
this’, right? ‘What did I take from this?’ Meaning a former baseball player, or a former
basketball player that has helped me in real estate? Bridge that gap, tell that story, I
think that's the beauty there. I think when we talk about transferable skills, I'm glad
you mentioned that because I was actually gonna lead with my answer with that is
looking at what transferable skills can we bring to the table because of what we did,
because of who we were and now where we're going? It shows the athlete that maybe
they didn't become Babe Ruth, maybe they didn't become Michael Jordan, but what
they did do is acquire skills that will help them in their next phase, whether that's a
career, being a parent, whatever it is, it wasn't hard work for nothing.”

On moving on from what you’re best known for and grappling with a new identity
“Identity is so convoluted in terms of like what you want to look into specifically.
There are definitely things that I joke about on Twitter, which I actually I joke about
them because of my sarcastic dark humor. But at the same time, I think it's a sickness
that is out there where like people are like, ‘Oh, I'm not my job. That's what I do’. And
they say all this stuff and they work in social media, but then they're so happy to post
this video [that] they got a promotion, that they got a new job. You can't weigh them at
the same caliber, right?. And say that like, I am not this, but I am this. Yes, you can be
excited about getting a new job, but you also have to understand who you are as a
person. And I think that comes to the question that we really struggle with as humans
right now. COVID, didn't make it any easier, right? Blame COVID for everything. But I
think that if you ask the average person who are you, they can't answer the question.

“You know, you get the canned interview question ‘tell me about yourself’ [and]
people don't know how to answer the question. They always go back to titles. ‘I
am a senior at this school, or I am a coordinator at this job.’ That's not who you
are. Why are you answering ‘tell me about yourself with that answer’? And
that's a struggle that I have when I hear this stuff from students, from people,
from 40-year-olds to six-year-olds. Like, I don't care who you are, that's what
they do, if you look at it from titles, I think the titles that we should look at are
the ones that are human and they're sticky. Meaning, like, brother, sister,
mother, father — those are things that whether we get a new job or not,
hopefully they continue with us. That's who we are as human beings.

“But we tend to always go with like, I'll say I'm a professor, right? That's my title at
work. That's actually not who I am. wouldn't walk around being like, ‘Yeah, that's me,
I'm the professor.’ Like, I'm not an AND1 mixtape guy. So like that's to me what we
really struggle with and athletes are the same [way]. If you talk to an athlete, and I
could tell you this from experience working with baseball players, when you say to
them, what are you interested in, they always say baseball. And I say ‘You can't be
interested in an inanimate object. It's a baseball. Unless you have some weird fetish,
you can't be interested in it. So what is it about baseball that you're interested in?’ And
if you ask 10 people, you're gonna get nine different answers, right? You might get
similar things, like ‘I like the failure. I like being part of a team.’ That's what you're
interested in is being part of a team, right? You're a team player. That's something that
is part of your identity, part of your fabric, part of who you are as a person.

“And that's what we need to talk more about. I thrive in hectic, chaotic
situations. That's part of your identity. I love that stuff. Like, I think that
is a more defining identity than I'm a teacher or I'm an educator, I'm a
nurse. I just think it is. So when I talk to these baseball players and I say
this stuff, they get to a point where like, ‘All I know is baseball,’ and
that's not true. That's all you think you know, because that's what you've
done, but what can we talk about things that you've learned during
baseball that will spread it and then we could open them up or dive into
those little pieces of fabric to really find out who you are as a person?

“We start to see this more and more with athletes, especially in the Olympics actually,
when they retire or when they're in their off-season. We start to see who they are,
whether it's a vulnerable stage and something happens or it's just like, okay, well
they're not competing right now, so we can see what their tweets and Insta stories are
about. But if we just thought for a second what makes us who we are? It always comes
back to those interests. Like, what are we interested in? So I go back to that in terms of
the answer. But yeah, the identity thing is something — it's actually made me be on
social media less because of all these people who say, ‘Oh, I'm not this, this is not my
identity,’ but then they do these other actions that really show that, that you put a lot of
stock into what your job is. So stop lying about it. I wish people would just be like, ‘This
is who I am’ and just be true with what they are. Because it doesn't matter what your
job is if that's who you are.”

On Caleb’s learnings from working with young students interested in sports
“I've been teaching for six or seven years now and it's interesting because it's
still probably the same generation, but I think that there's been a lot of changes,
especially before COVID and after COVID. I think a lot of what we do as elders
to a younger demographic is usually just assume, and we just said, ‘They're all
like this’. We go through the stereotypes instead of asking questions. Like the
other day I had a student who had AirPods in both ears and instead of me
saying, take those off I said, what are you listening to? And he says nothing.
And I said, then why do you have them in your ears? And it's asking those
questions that gets them to be, I guess inquisitive of how we go about this.

“And I think the other part is to create an environment. How do you create an
environment where, yes I'm the teacher, yes I'm older, yes I have three degrees and
you're working towards one. And I say that because that is a huge part because they
dismiss teachers because we have the DR in front of our name for whatever reason.
So we have to create that environment [of] like I don't know everything and [for]
the things I don't know, I'm gonna bring in a guest speaker like Neil to talk about.
What I’m I'm gonna say to you guys, ‘Tell me more about esports. Tell me more
about TikTok. I don't know that much about it. When you give them a seat at the
table, when you give them the autonomy — and it's really called co-crystallization
— you let them kind of pick and choose what they want to do and then together, we
come up with this class environment [and] when you do that, they feel invested.

“And when they feel invested, they're gonna trust, they're gonna be loyal
to you, they're gonna fight, and they're gonna want to see the end
product, which is whatever assignment, whatever their final is of
themselves come out to fruition and make it the best it can be. When
you change that dynamic and it's more like, ‘This is what we're gonna
do, this is what I've always done, this is how my syllabus is, this is the
assignment, you're gonna take a test this day, you're gonna come in and
do this.’ They're like ‘I don't want to do this.’ It's like having a trainer
who's like, ‘Yeah, I'm gonna build your, my body on your body.’ That's
not what the person wants. So I would say that's one of the things.

“For me, I am one of the younger teachers at 35 years-old [and] I have
18-year-old students right now, which is just weird to think about, 18
and 35 because they're like half my age, but when I started, I was 29 or
30 and they were closer to my age. So I've over the years lost my touch
with the wokeness, right? Like being in touch with the new digital
things. I used to think that I was super into it. So I really do have to sit
there and learn about what they want to do, or watch these stupid videos
that they share with me, or go on YouTube and be like, ‘How do I
become TikTok famous? if I wanted to? Just to know what it is; not that
I'm going to be TikTok famous.

“What I started to realize — I'll give you a story from last year. [On] March 7th we
removed the mask mandate at our school for the first time since COVID and I thought
that that was gonna be like a rebirth, like everybody was gonna be like, ‘Oh my God, I
could see the bottom part of your face. I love going to school again.’ What happened
was it was getting warmer at the same time and they were not thrilled about going to
school because for the first time ever, they could be free, and they wanted to just stay
in their dorms or stay at home wherever they were and not come to class. And I was
like, I need to do something. I realized that a lot of them are on TikTok, whether
they're in my class or they're out of the class, they're on TikTok. So I created an
assignment — they were gonna create a TikTok video and whoever had [the most]
comments and shares would win some bonus points or whatever for an assignment.

“And what that does is it creates the competitiveness. It allows them to
be creative [and] make up their own thing, but at the same time, it's
something different, right? It's something different and it meets them
where they are. Not everybody's on TikTok, and not everybody enjoys
TikTok, but if you do a group setting like that, it's something different
that they could do. So I'm gonna continue to use TikTok in different
classes over time for different things, whether it's extra credit or part of
the assignment…

“You and I were talking about just integrating it based off of people's skills.
So like some people might not want to be on TikTok with their face and
talking, but they might be okay with doing the audio and piecing together
videos and pictures to making up a TikTok, Reel, whatever…They might have
that skillset better or they might know how to make something go viral…but
all I'm doing is asking them to bring me to that table instead of the other way
around., and I think that that'll kind of create excitement; plus it's not bad if
they're doing something for the class and then they can be like, ‘Hey, look at
what I did’ to their friends. ‘Can you share this? Can you like this? This is
pretty cool that I'm doing this in college. Never thought I would do that.’”

On Gen Alpha and Gen Z’s interest in sports
“The first day I always ask them, ‘Are you a fan of sports or are you a fan of
sports business?’ I write on the board for my intro class ‘check your fandom at
the door.’ And I think that usually pisses [off] the ones who are there who think
it's like, ‘I'm gonna be Stephen A and they're gonna be Skip Bayless’ and it's
just not gonna be like that. So I get those people out quickly. That’s my goal and
I might sound brutal and people might think I'm a dick because of that, but
that's just what I have to do. I think what happens is that I have to shape their
brain to like the business side or at least see the business side. They don't have
to like it, but at least see the business side.

“So I would say that some students come in with some notion that, ‘Oh, I'm playing
basketball here, basketball's the sport I wanna work in.’ And I think over time they
realize [that] a lot of sports are similar. You could work in baseball if you like
basketball. I think what I've found is a lot of people don't wanna work in baseball
because the season is so long. But like, ‘Hey, basketball's my least favorite sport, I
only wanna work in these sports,’ at least they're open-minded to that. But when
we start to go through at the freshman level what skills they need to acquire and
how to look at a job description, how to start looking at companies, they realize that
it's more than just professional and collegiate sports and that there are all these
opportunities for them to volunteer, shadow and get experience and really comes
from those experiences what skills you acquire and then apply for a job.

“The other thing is I think COVID has pushed us to a different economy,
actually a very similar economy that you and I experienced when we
graduated college in 2009, which is you need a job. So it doesn't matter
if you wanna work in your favorite sport or not, you need a job. So that
really changes their notion of when they come in, ‘I wanna work in this.
I wanna be this’ versus’ I need a job.’ And I'm only saying that because
that is the world we live in right now, and that's the truth.”

“I don't know [about their level of sports fandom]. I would be interested to do a study
on that because there's definitely 25% of every class that I have where they don't miss
a game…They play fantasy sports, they bet, all that kind of stuff. I would say there's
another 25% who if they had the choice between watching a game and working a
game, they would probably choose working, but if they weren't working, they would
watch. Then there's another 25% [where] they just wanna make money, they just
wanna create experiences, they just wanna create memories. And that's another 25%.
Then I have maybe another 25% — I don't know if it is even 25 — they actually don't
watch sports at all, but that they're interested in business and they think, ‘Hey, if I'm
gonna do business, why not do sports?’ Those sometimes are usually the best
students because they have no emotional attachment to anything. Like, if a team won
or lost or if their favorite player got traded or whatever, they're just like, ‘Okay, well,
what does this do for that team now? What does this do for that town now?’...

“The other thing — and this is where the 25% starts to cross over is —
when I tell you that someone says that, like, basketball is all they want to
play and work in. I know a lot of students who know they love football,
but at the same time they know they can't work in football because they
love it so much, so they choose to work in basketball. And I actually like
that, I think that's really cool.”

What should we know about Neumann University?
“I will say that they have the nicest people that I've ever encountered at
any workplace. It's not a knock on other workplaces, everybody's just so
down to earth [here] and I think it comes from the Franciscan values,
which are embedded into Neumann University.”

Caleb’s favorite project or campaign that he got to work on at 160over90
“I'm gonna give you two answers. One of my favorites was we worked on
a ‘signing day’ — this is not sports- related — with UVA and Michelle
Obama. It was just cool because it was Michelle Obama. It was like May
1st, whatever signing day is, but it was a very short-lived campaign
because of that.

“One of my favorite things I ever worked on was with the Mid-American
Conference (MAC), which if I told you about the whole campaign, which
seemed super old hat because of when we did it, but we walked around with
ping pong balls [and] each had a different number corresponding with that
number was an activity that they had to do. It was very Jimmy Fallon-esque. So
we'd walk around on a media day and each team had two or four players — it
was like an offensive and a defensive player — and we would go up to the
players and then pick a ball and do the challenge. We had somebody who was
doing Instagram, Snapchat, honestly I think Periscope was the thing back then,
so Twitter —I don't think we did Facebook…So we had a person for each one
because we only had so many phones. That was my favorite thing just because I
thought it was so fun to come up with the idea and then execute it.”

About Caleb’s recently launched podcast ‘Beyond Baseball’
“I'm glad that I can promote it a little bit. Jared Perkins is a friend of mine — he's
my co-host — and he does a lot of writing on the human interest side of baseball
players. So he actually interviewed me; [when he] heard about my dissertation, I
actually gave it to him and he didn't fall asleep reading it and was like, let's do a
podcast together. So we're gonna interview baseball players that have been tied to
the game and talking about them as a person, but really learning about them
beyond baseball.
“So we just started it, we've already recorded three episodes. The third one comes
out this week. But it's really cool because we're really quick in terms of jumping in
with the athlete and really getting to know them on a personal level.”

About Caleb’s work around ‘mamba mentality’
“So simply put, I would say the Mamba Mentality really means the pursuit of getting
better each and every day. It's not like, ‘Oh one day, I'm just gonna decide to be better
and I'm gonna do hashtag no days off, living my best life,’ all that kind of stuff. It's
really that commitment and discipline to continue doing this every day. I think it's one
of the hardest things for people to do is to commit to something and do it every day.
“What I have researched, learned and written about is really not a quick hitter in
terms of this segment, but I'll give you some key pillars that we could talk about, which
is curiosity, relentlessness, and excellence. I think being creative about how you do
things is really interesting. But there are so many different pillars the way people
interpret and see Kobe and the mamba mentality.”

The current athlete and the former athlete that is consistently crushing it
“I would say the current athlete is JJ Watt. I just love how he does social, from
helping people — I think he was helping this person whose father passed away,
giving someone new shoes to raising money after the disaster that happened in
Houston.
“The former athlete I'm more struggling on the consistently crushing part…It's
tough because I don't know what their goals are…I think Derek Jeter's funny
because like you were talking about followers, someone who just joins and then
kind of understands social, but also gets 3 million followers because it’s Derek
Jeter. I love what he's doing. I love what he did with his documentary that came out
where he was live-tweeting things.”

The number one piece of advice that Caleb likes to leave students with
“I told this to students the other day — I said, if you guys make shirts, you will
sell these shirts [that say] ‘Chase people, not jobs.’ I say that because a lot of us
get caught up in the applying for jobs. ‘Oh, I see this job, let me apply.’ But we
know, you and I, that if you apply for a job and you don't know anyone, you're
not gonna get that job. It's just how it is. So if you can chase people, [then]
when the job posts and you know the person who has either posted that job or
connected [to] that job or someone who works with that company because you
chase that person, you'll likely get that job. So chase people, not jobs.”

Caleb’s favorite campaign, idea, or project that really came out of a student-led project
in class
“I'm actually just gonna go back to that TikTok idea. So, because of what I was telling
you with that birth of the TikTok idea, we created this account called at Mezzin Around,
@mezzin_around. And because of that, it's kind of been this collective over the course of
classes of different assignments that people can do. So my one class did, basically, they
watched all these documentaries and recorded a little synopsis on TikTok about what
they learned from them and what other people could learn. And then another group just
did a social challenge of, how do you get the most followers, likes, and comments.
“So two classes kind of did that in the spring semester and we're gonna bring it into my
governance policy and legal class, and then also my intro class again…”.

The best meal to get in Philly and where to get it. And
also where to get the best cheesesteak in Philadelphia
“So the best meal to get, I would say is Double Knot. I
would love to take you there because it's like an Asian
cuisine with kind of a Philly feel to it. I won't talk about
where it is because it's in an old warehouse that used to
have different kinds of stuff. But they have great
sushi…So you can either go raw food and you can get
sushi and stuff like that, but they also like raw meats
and lke all these different things. They literally have
chicken that they say is [better than] Chick-fil-A
chicken. That's what they say. The menu is huge. It's
very expensive. The drinks are also amazing. So the
tally at the end of the night will be pretty hefty.

“Angelo’s would be another one, and
Angelo’s, you could either go cheesesteak or
pizza and it would be good. I would answer
that for my favorite cheesesteaks because I
don't wanna talk about Pat’s or Geno’s, and
we don't wanna talk about Jim’s since there
was a recent fire at Jim's, but the sleeper
cheesesteak place I'll say is Gooey Looies.
It's quite the experience and it's a great
name, but Gooey Looies is the sleeper.”

The athlete trend that Caleb is most closely following right now
“I'm biased because of my research, but I would say just understanding
more closely what athletes are going through in their transition, how to
better prepare them. We talked a little bit about Minor League Baseball
and Major League Baseball and the unionization of both; I think that's
something that's gonna be really interesting. I hope that it kind of helps
Minor League Baseball players transition better. So the better-prepared
transitions are kind of the things I'm looking at closely.”

What's gonna happen first — are the Phillies gonna win a World Series
or are the Eagles gonna win the Super Bowl?
“When I saw this question, I was not sure how I would answer. I wanna
say Eagles winning the Super Bowl, but I think it might have to come
down to Tom Brady retiring first. I think the Phillies are close, but not
that close yet. I think the Eagles have the team that they could [win]; it'll
come down to consistency and the defense. So as much as it hurts, I'll
say the Eagles — that's what's gonna happen first.”

Caleb’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“I'm gonna go Steve Magness (@SteveMagness). He just wrote the book Do
Hard Things. I love just the way he thinks, the way he relates everything. It's
not always about sports, but there's definitely a sports side to what he does.
“Obviously, anybody who follows me knows I retweet and like Adam Grant’s
(@adammgrant) stuff all the time…Then another one who I've more recently
just kind of fallen into [is] Sahil Bloom (@SahilBloom). His threads are just
nasty. They're so good. And I think he played baseball at Stanford. A lot of the
baseball guys I talk to always reference him. So I see him as a really big leader
there and I just love what he's doing in terms of how he's positioning himself.”

Where to find Caleb and all the things he does on digital/social
Find Caleb on Twitter @Caleb_Mezzy
Check out Caleb’s class on TikTok @Mezzin_Around
Caleb has a consultancy working with athletes called Grit and Glue
(website, on Twitter @GritandGlue, on IG @_gritandglue_)
And check out the Beyond Baseball podcast

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Thanks again to Caleb for being so generous with his time to share his
knowledge, experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to the podcast, follow me
on LinkedIn and on Twitter @njh287, and visit www.dsmsports.net.

Growing Up in Social Media: Caleb Mezzy's Career Journey

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