Super Bowl Provides Super Learning Experience for Ithaca College Students

By Dave Maley, February 2, 2026

Students play important off-the-field roles at one of the biggest sporting events.

Six Park School students will be among those from Ithaca College gaining hands-on experience at Super Bowl LX.

Two teams from Ithaca College will be represented at Super Bowl LX, being held this year at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. These teams—comprising eight students from the School of Business and six from the Roy H. Park School of Communications—won’t be playing on the gridiron, but will be playing important behind-the-scenes roles leading up to one of the world’s biggest sporting events.

The Park School students are part of what’s known as Radio Row—a bustling area in the Moscone Convention Center that serves as a media epicenter where journalists, athletes, celebrities, and fans converge. There, the students will serve as working members of the press, conducting interviews and turning that content into video, radio, and social media coverage.

Rayahna Tryka ’26, Connor Smith ’26, Keenan Jackson ’26, Colin Martin ’26, Molly Golden ’28, and Devon Jarvis ’27 will join hundreds of professionals from across the nation on Radio Row.

Representing the college’s student-run broadcast stations WICB radio and ICTV, as well as the Ithaca College Athletics Creative Media team, the work produced by the students will be aired on those platforms and on the college’s social media channels throughout the week.

“This opportunity is really gratifying in terms of understanding how our alumni and peers view us as students,” says Jarvis, a television and digital media production major. “It’s incredibly humbling to be chosen, and while the week itself will be amazing, the lasting impact will come from the connections we make and the opportunities that grow from them.”

This trip was made possible through Special Opportunities for Students (SOS) funding, which allows Park School students to travel to participate in a variety of hands-on experiential learning activities.

“They tell us that, even if they have this incredibly well-developed resume when they graduate, employers go right to the Super Bowl on their resume and say, ‘Tell me about this. How’d you get to do that?’”

Rachel Madsen, associate professor of Marketing and Sport Management

While the Super Bowl itself is a single game, the event is actually a weeklong operation, with fan experiences, hospitality programming, and large-scale logistics unfolding across multiple sites in the host city. The School of Business students—all majoring in Sport Management—will work across those adjacent events, gaining hands-on exposure to the scope and complexity of professional sports operations.

This year’s contingent comprises Emma Cianchi, Carly Dixon, Jessie Lopez, Charlotte Powell, Riley Donelan, Ryan Galka, Max Marshall, Jonah San Angelo—all members of the Class of 2026.

While on site during the week preceding the game, students serve as paid staff members supporting event operations. Their responsibilities include working multiple shifts at NFL-sponsored fan events, including the league’s interactive Super Bowl Experience; supporting hospitality and pre-game events for high-level guests; providing wayfinding and customer service support for fans during game-day operations; and observing and analyzing event security, logistics, staffing structures, and sponsor activations.

For both cohorts of IC students, the Super Bowl experience provides opportunities for engaging and networking with industry professionals and building long-term connections. This includes many Ithaca College alumni already working in these fields who are eager to help mentor the next generation. It also provides them with the opportunity to represent Ithaca College on a national stage, demonstrating the depth and breadth of student talent and the hands-on education IC students receive.

Rachel Madsen, associate professor of Marketing and Sport Management in the School of Business, says this experience has become a powerful differentiator for students entering the job market.

“They tell us that, even if they have this incredibly well-developed resume when they graduate, employers go right to the Super Bowl on their resume and say, ‘Tell me about this. How’d you get to do that?’”