Making the Most of Title Town

One of the most iconic locales in professional sports is Fenway Park’s Green Monster. The 37-foot-2-inch-high wall houses the manually operated scoreboard, boasts some of the best views in the whole park, and has been the nemesis of many a left fielder.

If graduating senior Colin Sheehan has his way, one day fans will be able to slide down it.

Sheehan was part of a team that presented that very idea to Red Sox executives at a spring semester pitch session: Build a giant slide that starts at the top of the Green Monster and dumps people out in the outfield. It’s not such a crazy idea: In 2016, there was a 140-foot ski and snowboard jump inside Fenway Park.

The slide that Sheehan and his team proposed would be built for the Wasabi Fenway Bowl, a college football game that takes place inside the park between Christmas and New Year’s (and for which Sheehan is a volunteer). The Fenway Park team asked Sawyer Business School sports management students for ideas on how to drive local ticket sales and increase brand awareness for the event. One of their many ideas was the slide.

It makes perfect sense the Sheehan would help promote that kind of scheme: In addition to minoring in entrepreneurship, he is one of the first students to graduate from the new Sports Management Program the Sawyer Business School began offering in 2023.

A died-in-wool Boston sports fan, he took advantage of many of the opportunities that Suffolk offered to get experience in the business. As a member of the student-run marketing agency Suffolk in the Hub, he worked with local pro rugby team the New England Free Jacks. He also volunteered with the Boston Athletic Association (BAA) for several Boston Marathons and BAA Half Marathons, escorting elite runners to press conferences and assisting with interviews. He also co-founded Suffolk’s Business in Sports Club, and its members have participated in key networking events like the Harvard Undergraduate Sports Lab sports business conference and the New England Sports Summit.

After Commencement, Sheehan (whose mother earned her Master of Public Administration degree from Suffolk in 1998) will start a job on the match day and event staff of the New England Revolution, the local pro soccer team. And he’ll be volunteering at the FIFA Club World Cup games in Washington, DC throughout the summer. “A lot of people say they want to work in sports,” he says, “but I feel like Suffolk students are actually, actively working in the industry.”

Sheehan isn’t just eager to build a career in sports—he also wants to make it more accessible for others.

“I’ve played soccer since I was a kid,” he says. “I’ve been fortunate enough to do so at the club level, but I know a lot of players where I grew up who were better than me and weren’t able to play because of the cost of club soccer. The system definitely needs some work and I’d love to be part of the change.”