Last summer I was an intern with the Boise Hawks Baseball Club, a short-season class "A" team affiliated with the California Angels and a member of the Northwest League of Professional Baseball.

As an intern, I was exposed to virtually all facets of baseball operations. I arrived in Boise a month before the season started and worked to prepare the upcoming promotions. This included making a great number of phone calls to schedule performers, set up audition times, and look for items that we wanted to use for certain nights. In addition, I helped prepare the stadium for the season. One of the interesting tasks I had was to assist the general manager in renumbering many of the bleacher and reserved bench seats. Doing a menial task with the highest-ranking member of the Hawks was a wonderful experience.

When the season started, I found myself at the stadium between 13 and 15 hours a day. We ran a number of between-inning promotions, including a Jeep/Eagle mini-Indy race and a Culligan water gun shoot-out.

I was given the oppor-tunity to fully coordinate some of the promotional nights. Two in particular that I am proud of were "Hot Country Night" and "Wedding Night." Hot Country Night featured champion rodeo queens from throughout the Northwest, the entire staff dressed in cowboy apparel, and a postgame concert by national recording artist Shannon Brown. Wedding Night featured the wedding of two of our seasonal employees. For this event I had a dove release, a horse-drawn carriage for the bride, bagpipers to serenade the couple (at their request), a ceremony featuring a minister dressed as an umpire, a limousine ride off the field, a toast that included around 1,000 people, and a two-night honeymoon stay in Sun Valley, Idaho. The thing that made my superiors happy is that I stayed about $400 under budget.

In addition to these main duties, I also did a great deal to help in ticketing, sponsorship communication, stadium operations, and groundskeeping. And yes, to assist in special promotions I did occasionally play Humphrey the Hawk.

-- Kirk Goodman ’98