Liz Gallo ’16 works for MLB

“Hey, coach, I wanna help out.”

When she arrived on campus as a first-year student, communication major Liz Gallo ’16 sought out Pat Lightle, Messiah’s baseball head coach, and said those words. She wanted to know more about baseball—recruiting, managing and all the not-so-glamorous parts of the game.

Both of them new at Messiah, they made a connection. The coach and the student had no way of knowing then that this mentorship would shape Gallo’s career path.

“He calls me the team staple, but student manager would be my official title,” said Gallo, a lifelong New York Mets fan from Scotch Plains, N.J. “From there, I learned about baseball behind the scenes.”

She also learned about social media by partnering with the Office of Alumni Relations and Parent Relations and the Career and Professional Development Center (CPDC). Attending five alumni career immersion Into the City trips—in Philadelphia, Charlotte, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh and New York City—she served as the student social media coordinator, just for the experience.

From the moment we left Eisenhower,” she said, “until we got back, I tweeted, Facebooked and Instagrammed. That’s how I got connected with parents, trustees and the president. Then, I would connect with these people when I saw them on campus.

Gallo’s skill at connecting others online led to a work-study position at the CPDC.

Meanwhile, Lightle asked Gallo about her life plan.

“He treated me like a player in that sense,” she said. “He stresses to [the team] that you need to be proactive in what you want to do in your future.”

She realized she wanted to combine her skills as a communication major with Major League Baseball. The coach called a contact of his at Madison Square Garden who knew someone at Sportsnet New York, a regional sports network that includes the Mets. Those connections led to a summer internship.

The internship led to a job. As a new grad, Gallo is now working as a production assistant at the MLB Network.

I would listen to her talk about game strategies,” said Lightle, “and realized she really knew a good bit about the game within the game. It wouldn’t surprise me if she became a college baseball coach someday. She is perfect for the MLB Network environment.

— Anna Seip, editor