{"id":1268,"date":"2025-07-31T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2025-08-01T12:47:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T12:47:48","slug":"the-marshall-mindset-the-power-of-relationships-in-the-sports-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/2025\/07\/31\/the-marshall-mindset-the-power-of-relationships-in-the-sports-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Marshall Mindset: The Power of Relationships in the Sports World"},"content":{"rendered":"
The year is 1987. U2\u2019s The Joshua Tree <\/em>album is topping the charts, the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI and Three Men and a Baby<\/em> is the top grossing movie.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also halfway through Syracuse\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re 7-year-old Landon Owen, this day changes everything\u2014attending your first college football game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe roof popped off the Dome that day and I was hooked,\u201d Owen said. \u201cI said, \u2018How do you do this for a living?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

That game showed Owen a glimpse of what his future could be like\u2014driven by a love for sports.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ca mediocre first baseman and backup catcher.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s ticket office.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/a>He started at Marshall in August 2004 and left after football season in 2006. Owen experienced a bit of Hollywood in Huntington\u2014he was here during the filming of We Are Marshall<\/em> and remembers the buzz it brought to campus.<\/p>\n

Owen\u2019s connection with Marshall started long before 2004.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up watching Moss, Leftwich and Pennington play in the MAC, since I grew up near the University of Buffalo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As for his experience at Marshall?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s everlasting, really,\u201d he said. \u201cMarshall 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even as careers in sports took them in different directions, their Marshall connection kept them close, no matter the distance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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,\u201d Owen said.<\/p>\n

That connection is personal, too. Owen married Jenn Gaston, a fellow Marshall graduate and former student body president.<\/p>\n

They even held their wedding reception in the Memorial Student Center, bringing their Marshall story full circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife feels the same way, her lifelong friendships aren\u2019t people she grew up with, they\u2019re people she went to Marshall with,\u201d Owen said. \"Landon<\/a><\/p>\n

Owen recalled the first season Marshall joined the Sun Belt Conference, he and Jenn brought their son to his first Marshall game\u2014an away game at App State. He saw then Interim Marshall Athletic Director Jeff O\u2019Malley, a mentor from his grad school days at Marshall, and a classmate and professor undergrad at Wingate.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like a, \u2018Hey, here’s your life\u2019 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\u2014he\u2019s an App State fan now,\u201d Owen said. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all chip in and help each other and it’s very much a Marshall mentality,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One of Owen\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had many students make meaningful connections from the event and some land jobs,\u201d Owen said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"Landon
Landon Owen and his son AJ on the MLB field inside Bristol Motor Speedway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now, he\u2019s helping lead the charge for the MLB Speedway Classic\u2014where 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to create WOW moments that exceed expectations,\u201d Owen said.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s exactly what Owen\u2019s team is doing\u2014building consistent relationships with each fan\u2014and making each of them feel special. That can be difficult when speedway capacity is 146,000, but they\u2019re making it work.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrind it out until you start making opportunities for yourself and take those calculated risks,\u201d Owen said. \u201cAnd don\u2019t be afraid. I\u2019ve never seen somebody that\u2019s bet on themselves and lose.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year is 1987. U2\u2019s The Joshua Tree album is topping the charts, the New York Giants won Super Bowl XXI and Three Men and a Baby is the top grossing movie. It\u2019s also halfway through Syracuse\u2019s undefeated football season in the Carrier Dome. You watch the team run out of the tunnel for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":198,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-moments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/198"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1275,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/moments\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}