The 2002 film Sweet Home Alabama has virtually nothing to do with The University of Alabama, but it plays into Kacie McGuinness’s reason for joining the Capstone family.
Kacie loved to watch the movie as a kid while growing up in Maineville, Ohio. After several repeated screenings of the movie, she saw the Crimson Tide dominating a football game on TV. As she watched thousands of fans cheering on the Tide, her mind was settled on where she wanted to go for college. So, Kacie headed to Tuscaloosa to join the UA family.
She began her freshman year at the University in August 2021. Once she moved onto campus and got settled in, she discovered the many different club sports and amenities available to UA students as part of University Recreation (UREC) and began playing volleyball with other students on campus. She met several new friends playing volleyball and is still quite close with many of them, which helped her get connected her freshman year and laid the trajectory for the rest of her college experience.
“Playing volleyball at UREC was how I found my community, and we are still friends to this day,” she said.
Furthermore, she learned that students could work as referees and officiates for the sports club matches and intramural games. Kacie wanted to become more involved with UREC after finding friends and fond memories so quickly, so she applied to join the team the following semester and became an intramural official for the flag football and softball intramural leagues.
Kacie performed her intramural official duties without issue or complaint, and continuously received guidance and support from her supervisors. After a successful semester in this role, she climbed a step on the UREC ladder and became a supervisor. This position change brought on some new duties, as she was now responsible for offering support to fellow student employees, professional staff members and participants, enhancing program experience, ensuring policy adherence, recruiting talent, providing training and more. She continued to receive leadership instruction and personal support from her student superiors in this role, known as program assistants (PAs).
“They [program assistants] have helped me grow so much. They gave me feedback on how to improve as an official, and as a supervisor they coached me on different ways that I could handle difficult situations between people. . . It’s important to know how to interact with people who have different styles of communication or who respond to different styles of leadership.”
After her role as a supervisor came to an end, she decided she wasn’t done with UREC just yet. She didn’t want to give up the camaraderie and family feel she’d spent so much time developing.
“I found that working at UREC has given me a community that’s super supportive, fun and awesome to be around. I look forward to going to work every day,” she said.
Kacie listened to her gut and applied to stay on as a UREC staff member, and this time she climbed the ladder again to become a program assistant herself. Many of her duties in this role are still the same, but with more added responsibility.
“I oversee nightly programming. Each PA has one night a week where we’re in charge and we make sure things run smoothly from dealing with complaints to making sure our officials have what they need, and the supervisors can evaluate the officials’ performance to the best of their ability and make sure the sport clubs have everything they need as well,” she elaborated.
It wasn’t just Kacie’s checklist that became more robust. As she kept advancing with UREC, her professional development and workplace skills also grew tremendously. Her capacity for team leadership, project management, problem solving, interpersonal communication and other skills skyrocketed as she gained valuable experience in her roles. She spoke at length about specific ways her professional development has been enriched by working at UREC.
“There are so many amazing professional development opportunities from working at UREC. It’s surreal that I get to do this and grow my leadership abilities,” she said. “Now that I’m a PA myself, my superiors in professional staff have been an amazing help for me. One of my bosses helped me with my resume and gave me tips on how to make it better; now that’s useful information I’ll have for the rest of my life.”
She also explained how her experience with UREC provides her a significant advantage as a kinesiology major.
“I’m using [my employment at UREC] as a Kinesiology internship for my major, and this job can help any kinesiology major with whatever route they plan to take. . . For anybody, having a job on campus is so helpful to make connections and build up your professional resume and your development in the real world. You can build up your network and have fun while doing it,” she explained.
Throughout Kacie’s time with UREC, she’s gained invaluable interpersonal and professional skills that will continue to shape her future. Along with this career preparation are the friendships and relationships she formed with others at UREC. A group of strangers turned into a team of trusted confidants for Kacie, and she couldn’t be happier with her decision to come to UA and make it her Sweet Home Alabama. She has one final tip for incoming students.
“Put your foot forward. If you’re interested in something, whatever it is, just go out and do it because you never know what opportunities will come from it. You might just meet your new best friend at that random cycling class you signed up for last minute. You never know what you’re going to find.”