Vinessa Needham
Community Relations ~ Customer Experience ~ Marketing ~ Social Media ~ Videography

             Vinessa Needham currently resides in Chicago where she works as a Member Support Lead for Next College Student Athlete. She manages all financial inquiries from processing payments to escalated cancel requests. She also assists in teaching families of 34 sports on how to use the profile and resources to connect with college coaches of all division levels for NCAA, NAIA, and Junior Colleges so they can successfully commit to a school that best fits their academic and athletic goals.

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She moved back to Indiana to be near family during the unprecedented time of 2020. This is where she found NCSA and started as a Baseball Recruiting Coordinator. She identified talent and helped families with a game plan for college both academically and athletically. Prior, she was living in Denver for the past three years, where she was working for the Colorado Rockies.

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During her time with the Rockies, she served as a Customer Service Representative in the teams Call Center, then transitioned into their Group Sales department as an Administrative assistant before working her way to be the Ticket Services Supervisor. As the supervisor, she troubleshot all ticketing concerns from location, rain outs, mobile education, etc. She also ran the Game Ops for the Rockies High School Baseball Program. Although her main passion is the sport of baseball, Vinessa loves getting to know fans stories and building a relationship on a deeper level. That was the most rewarding experience of her role.

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Prior to her move to Denver, she was Director of Communications and Community Relations for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of Pacers Sports and Entertainment in Indiana. Her role included being responsible for the teams’ print and social media presence, managing player relations through local and national media outlets, community outreach and appearances and building relationships with the community, local media, and game day staff. She planned and executed our Season of Giving toy initiative through Pacer Cares, donating 5,000 toys throughout the greater Fort Wayne Community. 

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She began her interest in journalism and publications with sports her freshman year of high school. At the end of her freshman year, she was featured for her first sports article. She then became a member of the sports section for the school newspaper her sophomore year and took on skills as a sports photographer her junior year. Vinessa was awarded the spot as Sports Editor of the yearbook her senior year.

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Vinessa graduated from Ball State University with a double major in Telecommunications and Journalism-News and a Sports Studies Minor. During her college career she worked with Cardinal Athletic Media Relations. Her duties include filming live games, highlights, recaps, and recruiting videos. She also was involved with editing the videos and posting them on the Athletic website.

 

​From there she traveled to Massachusetts to partake in an apprenticeship with the Lowell Spinners of the Boston Red Sox Organization, which gave her insight in marketing and community relations. She learned an immense amount about what it takes to work with a professional sports team.

               

After the Spinners season she joined KBK Sports, which is a sports memorabilia company. With KBK she worked numerous auctions at Boston College sporting events and golf outings, setting up displays in a way that made the items appealing to the eye.

           

She enjoys being a volunteering with the Denver Dream Center, the Million Meal Movement, Special Olympics, and White Sox Charities in her spare time to further her ties in helping the community.

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Vinessa plans to make an impact in the sports industry by working in any field that she can, specifically through community relations and visual storytelling. Sports are a huge aspect of her life, and she hopes that she can help others feel the same joy through her endeavors in the industry.