Most people love parties; Felicia Borselio '26 loves planning parties. Easter, Christmas, Halloween, it doesn't matter. Give her a theme, and let her go to work. This Valentine's Day, about 10 friends gathered in a Padua Hall room for a Felicia holiday special.
"I made pizza roses and cupcakes. We watched a romcom on Netflix. I also had everyone pull someone else's name out of a hat. You had to make a Valentine's Day card for whichever friend you drew."
They say do what you love and you'll never work a day, so Felicia went searching for a career that aligns with party planning. Almost to her own surprise, she found what she was looking for in professional lacrosse.
"I'm not really a sports fan. I hate running. I remember thinking at some point, 'I'm never going to work in sports.' But here I am, and I love it."
Felicia's dad made her a deal. She could keep a car on campus as long as she found an off-campus internship to justify it. A marketing major, Felicia applied to several places and scored an interview with the Albany Firewolves, a professional lacrosse team in the National Lacrosse League.
"At first they had me interview with ticket sales, but that wasn't for me. I ended up getting assigned to the game day operations team, and this has been great."
On the game day side, Felicia helps out with just about anything that's not related to the actual lacrosse, which could mean sound effects, the scoreboard, or on-field entertainment during timeouts. But Felicia truly tapped into her passion when she was assigned the Women in Sports panel. The February event, which was tied to National Women in Sports Day, featured panelists sharing their experiences working in different sports industries. Felicia was in charge of the event.
"I was given the freedom to come up with the program and run it from top to bottom. It was stressful and people definitely thought I had more power than I did, but it was fun having so much say in what was happening."
From the experience, Felicia's concluded she'd like to pursue a career in event planning for an arena. ASM Global is the world's leading venue management company and partners with over 400 venues worldwide. Even though Felicia won't graduate until next May, she'll occasionally check ASM Global for job postings. In the meantime, she's onto the next project with the Firewolves, and this one will look particularly good on her resume.
As part of her marketing practicum, Felicia's developing a plan to increase college students' attendance at Firewolves' games. Over the next two weeks, she'll be analyzing data and reviewing strategies from other NLL teams, and before the end of the season, she'll present her findings to her supervisor. The team plans to adopt her ideas for the final home game and if successful, Felicia's presentation could be the blueprint for next season.
