William Underwood:  

r...Southern Rock Parties that we held each year...what the surviving brain cells remember anyway...The practical jokes...the road trips. In short doing a bunch of stuff that if you did off campus you would either have a rap sheet for D and D and/or be an unemployable social pariah but since it was on campus you were cool and a folk hero! :) Then there were the hockey memories...my first game of senior A hockey and meeting our team goon who's big claim to fame was braining a guy with his stick AFTER a series was done in the hand shake line...skating on a line with a guy who had played in the WHA a little bit... Workplace I've been involved in sports since I left college. I began coaching a junior hockey team in Watervaliet New York and working as a bird dog for a team in the Quebec Major Junior League. God was good to me and I got lucky enough to hook up with a new expansion team in the league where I started scouting for them and quickly became head scout. The team folded inside of a year but I made connections with the Quebec Nordiques of the NHL who I scouted for the next three years for. After I left the Nords I joined the new ECHL as head scout of the Johnstown Cheifs who wne to that league's first final and we came within 10 minutes of taking it! I then had a similar position with Detroit in the Colonial League and about that time began to move into franchise borkerage and promotion. I ha dbeen involved with an effort to start a new major league that never qutie made it...I was to be the Player Personell boss for Cincinatti in that league. But as I branched out I got involved in other sports. I was team manager of the US Natioanl Rugby League side in Sydney in 1994 and have been invovled in that sport. I also got involved with the Gaelic Athletic Association. I helped to bring a Trenton team into the New York GAA and helped the North American Board to negotiate a small TV deal. It has been a great way to explore my Irish roots and have alot of fun...I never thought I could handle a hurly--the ole hockey/lacrosse hands came through! Ok I could only practise because in a game the general logic is that an American would get his skull caved in becuase you'd get nailed by ash into the melon :) I am currently starting to brach into merchandizing. i still scout...I consult with the Central Hockey League and am on the staff of Ontario Hockey Leaheu Central Scouting and am on a roll....in the past two years two locals who I have sent north got drafted in the first and the second rounds of the NHL draft. It feesl good to give back to local hockey that way as well as the professional success. Addtionally I run summer leagues and clinics to try to help advance kids and I also teach a couple of sports management courses in college...it is a tough profession to make it in and over the eyars I have learned the do's and don'ts and it is good to try to help the next generation do it easier. Plus it is good to know that maybe my next assistant was taught by a guy who's head was not in some hole it didn't belong in...ok at least not TOTALLY:) Overall I've been lucky...I work in something that I love, I have been able to at least in part be my own boss, and I can give back. It can get crazy sometimes but when it does I say to myself "you know thsi is my BAD day but it could be a hell of alot wrose if theye were ALL bad days that I don't want to go in...":) I really can't complain!