Fall 2003

by Ken DeBolt

Sept. 21. The game started at 4:05 p.m., and was televised by FOX. The National Football League’s New York Giants visited FedEx Field and the Washington Redskins for an interdivision rivalry that featured two of the best and brightest in the NFL, both Hobart Statesmen, squaring off for the first time. [The final score wasn’t available at press time.]

Don’t remember seeing this clash of the titans play out on the field? Don’t worry, you didn’t miss it. This was a front office showdown. Rusty Hawley ’79 and Mike Stevens ’84 are the vice presidents of marketing for the Giants and Redskins, respectively.

The two men took strikingly similar paths to the front office. So how does one go from the academic halls of Hobart to vice president of a billion dollar sports franchise?
“Virtually by accident,” Hawley replies.

“A little bit of luck and a lot of perseverance,” Stevens says.

Hawley, who still holds the Hobart record for longest field goal (53 yards vs. Alfred), had a series of tryouts with NFL teams following graduation, and while he didn’t land a roster spot, he was introduced to an opportunity in the office of NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle.

Following 13 years with the league office—he moved into the NFL’s licensing and marketing arm after seven years on the commissioner’s staff—Hawley was at a point when he was “feeling the itch.” At about the same time, the Giants’ management was beginning an initiative to build its own marketing office.

Pictured with members of his immediate “team,” Rusty Hawley ’79 is pictured with his sons Tyler and Trevor.

“As a lifelong Giants fan, it was a welcome change,” Hawley says. “I wanted to find something that, 20 years down the road, would be just as challenging. Twenty-four years later, that’s proven to be true.”

The market Hawley faces presents unique challenges. While most pro teams compete with two or three other pro teams in their market, the Giants are one of a dozen pro teams in the New York metropolitan area, but that’s one of the draws of the job for Hawley.

“Every year that my department achieves a new record, we get to enjoy it for about a week, and then we realize that we’ve established a new benchmark for the coming year,” he says.

Stevens left Hobart with “no clue what I wanted to do.” During one job interview, the interviewer asked him to tell him what his dream job would be.

Michael Stevens ’84 is pictured with his sons Will and Owen. Mom is Leila Garrett-Stevens ’86.

The question got Stevens thinking about a career in sports, which eventually led to a job with The Equitable. The New York City-based company manages the pension and health insurance for the Major League Baseball Players Association, and Stevens was involved with the marketing of that relationship, helping take a New York Yankees tradition, Old Timer’s Day, to all of the major league teams.

Five years later, he joined the National Basketball Association marketing office. With only a handful of people at the start, Stevens and his colleagues helped make the NBA one of the most entertaining sports leagues in the world. During his tenure, the NBA introduced the original Dream Team, the WNBA, built its own television studio and produced more than 6,000 hours of original programming.

Stevens made one more stop before joining the Redskins this year, a two-year tour with a little company called eBay, taking the trading card and beanie baby online market and expanding to dozens of new categories featuring thousands of different products.

With the Redskins, he is the chief marketing officer for the highest revenue-producing franchise in all of sports. “Figuring out the next wave of growth, when most of the traditional lines are maturing, that’s the fun part, and that’s the challenge,” Stevens says of his new job.

While the journey involved a few more stops for Stevens, both he and Hawley agree that their Hobart education played an integral role in their successes. “Being well-rounded, open to creative thinking, creative solutions,” Stevens says. “A liberal arts orientation allowed me to see a creative, emerging business and think openly, seeking solutions to challenges without precedent. That’s what Hobart did for me.”

“I’m fiercely proud to be a Hobart grad,” Hawley says. “All of this would not be possible without the preparation I received at Hobart.”