When Jaidyn Rancourt arrived at the University of South Carolina, she was a timid transfer student, afraid to put herself forward. She overcame her fears and now is a senior with a dream job in the NBA waiting after graduation.

“The second I started reaching out to people is when I saw the results,” she says. “I’d advise anyone to lean on the resources the College of HRSM offers. Talk to your professors. Go to their office hours. They ‘re there to help you, but you have to let them know who you are.”

Rancourt, a sport and entertainment management major, recently accepted an offer to join the Cleveland Cavaliers as an account executive starting in June. Her services were in demand, as she also had a job offer from another NBA team.

“It was hard to choose, but I talked it through with my family and Cleveland just went above and beyond. They were just constantly like checking in on me, letting me know I could ask them any question about anything. They said they wanted to do whatever it takes to get me to come to Cleveland,” she says.

Rancourt’s road to the NBA began when the New Hampshire native transferred to USC after attending a different university her first year.

“I wanted to study sport management and they only had a club, and I had heard about the South Carolina program and how awesome it is,” she says. “It was a little hard at first to adjust, but everyone was so welcoming. It's the best decision I ever made to come here.”

The adjustment for Rancourt was made easier by David and Nicole Tepper Department of Sport and Entertainment Management faculty members like Natasha Brison and Murray Cohn, as well as her decision to join the Women in Sport and Entertainment Management student organization.

Cohn and fellow faculty member Steve Taylor taught her that for a student hoping for a career in sport, the key is not just getting an internship but making the most of it once you get one. She made it to the final round of interviews for an internship with the Boston Celtics, but was not chosen.

“She was very discouraged. I told her that the best way to the NBA was to gain hands-on minor league sales experience,” Cohn says.

Rancourt took that wise advice with her as she headed to Massachusetts to intern with the Worcester Railers, the ECHL affiliate of the New York Islanders.

“I learned the value of going above what is asked. I focused on earning the trust of my supervisor, Connor. By the end of my internship, he let me run my own sales campaign. I'm so grateful for that experience and how it prepared me for my dream — to sell for an NBA team,” she says. “I would also check in with different people on the sales staff, just ask them if they needed extra help. I think what helped me is that constantly, once I finished my task, I didn't just stop for the day. I kept going on and seeing what other things I could do.”

The reputation she built on campus and in that internship laid the foundation for her drive to make her NBA dream come true, and Cohn was there to help with her search.

“I talked to Murray and he kind of gave me the lay of the land. He told me places where he thought I’d do well and he had me give him a list of places I wanted to work. Cleveland just seemed like an awesome city,” Rancourt says. She adds that lessons learned in HRSM’s Marnie Pearce Professionalism Seminar and Taylor’s Sport and Entertainment Careers class helped her go into the interview process confidently, knowing she was well prepared.

She will join three other young David and Nicole Tepper Department of Sport and Entertainment Management alumni in Cleveland, adding her name to the roster of Gamecocks thriving as leaders in the world’s top leagues.