Alumnus John Cordova knows sports.

From football and baseball to hockey and golf, Cordova has been there and done that. As the director for sports transaction management at Coca-Cola, the 1981 and 1983 New Mexico State University graduate is responsible for marketing efforts in the sports industry.

Cordova, a former Aggie football player (1976-1979), is in charge of negotiating contracts with any domestic sport.

“It runs the gamut of everything we might do from stadium rights, serving Coca-Cola products, rights on advertising, marketing rights outside the stadium, marketing inventory, promotional nights, tickets to first-pitch opportunities,” he says.

A truly global industry, sports are big business and Cordova has been a part of that business for about 20 years. Cordova was on campus in September 2006 as part of the Garrey E. and Katherine T. Carruthers Speaker Series in Economic Development.

The road to success was not easy, especially when the sports business industry was just beginning to take flight.

While working on his MBA at NMSU, Cordova was an assistant offensive line/strength coach during the 1980 and 1981 seasons. Once he finished his degree, he decided to pursue a career that would allow him to combine his experience in sports and his degree.

“I ended up writing letters to every baseball, basketball, football and hockey team, any sport you can think of,” Cordova says. “I sent out hundreds of letters and received a couple of hundred rejections.”

Cordova might have been down, but he was certainly not out.

He found a job at Texas Instruments and thought that he could pursue the sports industry on the side. He worked at Texas Instruments for about eight months before he was contacted by the Major League Baseball Commissioner’s Office in New York. There he was given the opportunity to experience the many facets of the industry, from public relations, player records, minor league operations, licensing and sponsorship to television production.

Today, Cordova says, there are many more avenues that future professionals can look into.

“The opportunities are easier to come by … you just have to go out and find one,” he says. “You have to be willing to set a course. Whatever your dream is, you have to chase it, you are not always going to get it, but you have to be willing to take the chance.”