It’s also halfway through Syracuse’s undefeated football season in the Carrier Dome. You watch the team run out of the tunnel for the first time, feel the roar of the crowd and enjoy an armful of snacks, and then you watch Syracuse add another W to their record book against WVU.
If you’re 7-year-old Landon Owen, this day changes everything—attending your first college football game.
“The roof popped off the Dome that day and I was hooked,” Owen said. “I said, ‘How do you do this for a living?’”
That game showed Owen a glimpse of what his future could be like—driven by a love for sports.
Owen went on to earn his undergraduate degree in sport management at the DII Wingate University in North Carolina, where he played baseball as what he described as “a mediocre first baseman and backup catcher.”
Owen was working for a sports promotion business when an old college roommate sent him a job posting for a graduate assistant position at Marshall’s ticket office.
He started at Marshall in August 2004 and left after football season in 2006. Owen experienced a bit of Hollywood in Huntington—he was here during the filming of We Are Marshall and remembers the buzz it brought to campus.
Owen’s connection with Marshall started long before 2004.
“I grew up watching Moss, Leftwich and Pennington play in the MAC, since I grew up near the University of Buffalo,” he said.
As for his experience at Marshall?
“It’s everlasting, really,” he said. “Marshall gave me the structure I use as a leader today. The relationships I built there are still some of the strongest in my life. I could still pick up the phone right now and call two dozen people, and we’d be on the phone for an hour.”
And even as careers in sports took them in different directions, their Marshall connection kept them close, no matter the distance.
“We had a thing where anytime one of us got a new job, you had to go to the bookstore and mail everyone a t-shirt of your new school,” Owen said.
That connection is personal, too. Owen married Jenn Gaston, a fellow Marshall graduate and former student body president.
They even held their wedding reception in the Memorial Student Center, bringing their Marshall story full circle.
“My wife feels the same way, her lifelong friendships aren’t people she grew up with, they’re people she went to Marshall with,” Owen said. 
Owen recalled the first season Marshall joined the Sun Belt Conference, he and Jenn brought their son to his first Marshall game—an away game at App State. He saw then Interim Marshall Athletic Director Jeff O’Malley, a mentor from his grad school days at Marshall, and a classmate and professor undergrad at Wingate.
“It was like a, ‘Hey, here’s your life’ moment in a span of two or three hours there. Never mind the fact that Marshall ended up losing that game. And my son jumped ship—he’s an App State fan now,” Owen said. “But it was just a tremendous reminder of the power of relationships. And how deep those things run through Marshall. I don’t know that those would be the same if you were somewhere else.”
Owen’s taking the power of building relationships into his role at Speedway Motorsports as vice president of consumer sales for Bristol Motor Speedway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
“We all chip in and help each other and it’s very much a Marshall mentality,” he said.
One of Owen’s greatest accomplishments is creating a college networking night to Bristol for students aspiring to work in the sports business called Breaking Into Sports. For the past 8 years, the event has welcomed around 200 students a year to meet with leaders in sports in the NBA, NHL, MLB, minor league baseball and more.
“We’ve had many students make meaningful connections from the event and some land jobs,” Owen said.
The first role Owen had for the speedway was director of ticket sales in February 2012 and he has continued to work his way up through the organization.
Now, he’s helping lead the charge for the MLB Speedway Classic—where they hope to host upwards of 80,000 people for the Atlanta Braves versus the Cincinnati Reds in the speedway, the first regular-season MLB game played in Tennessee.
“We want to create WOW moments that exceed expectations,” Owen said.
And that’s exactly what Owen’s team is doing—building consistent relationships with each fan—and making each of them feel special. That can be difficult when speedway capacity is 146,000, but they’re making it work.
It all goes back to the Marshall mentality Owen mentioned, and his focus on relationships and work ethic is what he recommends current students focus on today.
“Grind it out until you start making opportunities for yourself and take those calculated risks,” Owen said. “And don’t be afraid. I’ve never seen somebody that’s bet on themselves and lose.”
