Ashton Beckerink '24

Too often, Ashton Beckerink has seen the dreams of young athletes evaporate. But thanks to her internship and the opportunities she received at Pitt-Bradford, she is determined to open her own sports facility and make sports accessible for all kids in her community.

Beckerink, a sport and recreation major at Pitt-Bradford from Jamestown, knows the challenges young athletes face. She grew up immersed in sports and saw firsthand how barriers such as finances, travel, and lack of support can stand between a child and their love of sports.

“I saw a lot of my friends having to drop out of sports,” Beckerink said. “They weren’t able to participate due to money, travel, rides…So my goal is to create a sports complex with as many sports as I can get in there.”

That’s why she is excited to learn and experience as much as she can during her internship with the Jamestown (N.Y.) Tarp Skunks. Working alongside the general manager, Beckerink is gaining valuable knowledge and experience managing a sports facility.

“It’s helped me a lot with understanding what happens day to day,” she said. From setting up games between innings, managing ticket sales, interacting with kids and parents, and working with sponsors, Beckerink is getting rigorous training on the ins-and-outs of owning and operating her own sports facility.

She has also learned a lot about the business and networking side of building her own business as a member of the inaugural Halloran Fellowship at Pitt-Bradford.

The Halloran Fellowship is a program that offers hands-on training, personalized mentorship, and venture development support to aspiring students and entrepreneurs like Beckerink.

Over several months, Beckerink and other Halloran fellows learned valuable problem-solving, team management, and networking skills. They also worked with business leaders and entrepreneurs to better understand what it takes to create and sustain a thriving business or organization.

“We did a lot of hands-on work learning different parts that go into building a business,” Beckerink explained. “We made a lot of connections with bigger corporations that would be able to help fund us and help us get noticed.”

However, one lesson Beckerink learned from both her internship and fellowship stands out the most: She learned to have confidence in herself.

“I learned a lot about having more confidence in what I wanted to do and understanding that I could figure it out,” she said. 

It’s that confidence that will continue to push Beckerink further toward achieving her goals. And thanks to the knowledge and experiences she gained at Pitt-Bradford, her internship, and the Halloran fellowship, she’s confident in making the dream of sports a reality for all kids in her community.