While many San Diego State athletes spent the summer grinding through workouts, travel, and training, two Aztecs carved out a different kind of experience. Volleyball’s Gianna Bender and softball’s Kaila Pollard traded jerseys for office work, diving into the business side of college sports through the Aztecs Going Pro summer internship program.

For eight weeks, the pair joined a paid internship cohort that places student-athletes across various departments within SDSU Athletics. Their focus: Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), a space that has transformed opportunities for college athletes nationwide.

“It’s really to help our student-athletes get tangible work experience to put on their resume, to help them transition one day out of college,” said Brenden Hill, SDSU’s assistant athletic director of student-athlete development and NIL. “Proximity is great, they’re already accustomed and familiar with our building, and get to see a lot of their peers across sports. There’s a little more buy-in when they have projects that are impacting them and impacting San Diego State.”

Bender: Building Brands and Behind-the-Scenes Lessons

Bender, a defensive specialist who led SDSU volleyball in digs as a freshman, said she first got connected to the program through the application process.

“AGP sends out an opportunity to fill out forms and put in your resume for internships, so I did it through that,” Bender said. “Then I started talking to Brenden and got assigned in the NIL portion.”

Working closely with NIL coordinator Abby Crawford, she found herself helping shape projects both for her teammates and SDSU’s larger strategy.

“I would meet with Abby, and she would give me some things to help her out. She’s new, so I gave her a lot of ideas of things that might be beneficial for athletes to see that isn’t there,” Bender said. “From my point of view, I gave her a lot of information, and I was also able to pitch in with helping with the volleyball team, helping with their NIL opportunities, and even building our brand on social media.”

One part of the internship gave her a new look at the nuts and bolts behind NIL opportunities.

“Seeing how the emails, the corresponding works would help me and push me to reach out more to other brands, if I want to work with someone, or if someone wants to work with me, handling that definitely in a better way,” Bender said.

She also recognized how different sports at SDSU sit at various points in the NIL landscape.

“Different teams, especially like football versus volleyball, they’re going to get a lot more opportunities than a volleyball team,” she said. “So it definitely depends on the team, where your team is at, and just like either being a woman or male — everything like that plays into it.”

Pollard: From Summer Bridge to NIL Insight

Pollard, a transfer infielder, entered the program through her Aztecs Going Pro class, which prepares athletes for future careers in the professional world.

“This past semester, I was in the junior class, and they really prepped us on our futures and starting a resume,” Pollard said. “One of the opportunities was doing an internship with AGP. I reached out to Brenden about wanting to get an interview going, and we set up an interview.”

For Pollard, NIL was a natural choice, blending her own experience as an athlete with an interest in the sports industry.

“I know I want to stay in the sports industry when I’m done,” she said. “So I think starting working with NIL and being around all of the other environments up on the third floor in the FAC [Fowler Athletic Center] has been really good because it’s let me explore different versions and branches of what the sports industry has to offer.”

Her work, however, stretched beyond NIL. Pollard assisted with the Summer Bridge program for incoming athletes and later helped redesign SDSU’s AGP website.

“I think a huge thing is being adaptable, because you can plan however much you want, but if one thing goes wrong, then you need to change very quickly,” she said. “Collaboration, obviously, working in teams is something that I’m used to, but I’ve never done it in the workforce. Public speaking is a big one, too — talking in staff meetings, presenting to Summer Bridge — that was huge.”

Pollard also noted the internal placement at SDSU made the experience more meaningful.

“It definitely made me comfortable going into it and confident,” she said. “Going into it, knowing that I’ll know some people working in my internship, and it’ll be easier to collaborate with them, was huge.”

A Win-Win for Athletes and Athletics

Hill said both Bender and Pollard demonstrated how the in-house internship model benefits student-athletes.

“Gianna learned that even something like how her team approaches content creation and showing up on social media impacts student-athletes,” Hill said. “And Kaila helped more on the life skills and AGP side of things, like Summer Bridge and the website redesign. Both of them got exposure to transferable skills they can apply to any career path.”

For the athletes themselves, it was an opportunity to balance the rigors of their sport with the demands of professional preparation.

“I think NIL is a great thing that’s happened, especially for women’s sports,” Pollard said. “It’s giving college athletes the opportunity they deserve to be making money.”

Bender echoed that the summer was about more than just NIL opportunities; it was about perspective.

“The more you learn about NIL, [it] gives you definitely more of an advantage,” she said. “But also, NIL is just a game changer.”