Montezuma graduate taking her game to the NCAA

​       Montezuma’s Elise Boulton, who will graduate in May 2024 from Simpson College, will spend one year in Indianapolis interning with the NCAA, where she will work in the Championships and Alliances Department as a Championships Operations intern. Her position will be to assist in running championships. She also spent two summers interning with the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and at Norwalk High School in operations as a student at Simpson.

By J.O. Parker
 
          From the hardwood to the boardroom, 2021 Montezuma High School graduate Elise Boulton is climbing the ladder to good things.
       Boulton, who will graduate in May from Simpson College with a Bachelor of Arts in Business Management and Sports Administration with a minor in Sports Communication, recently landed an internship with the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) in Indianapolis.
          The internship runs from June 17, 2024 to May 30, 2025.
          Boulton is the daughter of Buddy and Marie Boulton of Montezuma.
       At the NCAA, Boulton will work in the Championships and Alliances Department as a Championships Operations intern. Her position will be to assist in running championships.
        “I’ll have at least three championships that I work really heavily on,” said Boulton. “I’ll primarily deal with tournament hosts, external vendors, rules committees, as well as doing rankings and selections and other operational details ahead of the tournaments.”
         She learned of the NCAA opportunity last summer while looking for jobs, and applied for the program in September.
      “I wasn’t sure how good of a chance I had since a lot of the current and past interns have master’s degrees or doctorate degrees and a lot of them attended Division 1 schools,” said Boulton.
       After applying, Boulton received an email in early October requesting an interview via Zoom, which she did mid-month.
     In late October, Boulton was invited to fly out to Indianapolis for a dinner, in-person interview and networking.
     “The interviews went well, the networking was awesome, and my favorite part of being out there was meeting all of the other interviewees and traveling with them,” she said.
      Boulton said the NCAA hires 34 interns each year across 12 different departments for their postgraduate internship program (PGIP).
    In addition to helping run the championships she will be assigned to, Boulton will have countless networking and leadership development opportunities. 
      “Each intern gets to go on their own professional development trip,” said Boulton. “I will get to pick a city and spend four days there networking with whatever sports agencies I want to.”
     Boulton is no stranger to playing sports on the championship level, having competed in cross country, track and basketball at state while a student at Montezuma. The latter of which she helped lead the Bravettes basketball team to state four years in a row from 2018 – 2021, finishing as semi-finalists twice.
      In addition, she ran cross country at state all four years of high school, finishing 28th in Class 1A her senior year. 
      She also ran track at state her freshman and sophomore years, competing in the 3000 meter run both years and the 4x800 her second trip to Des Moines.
        She went on to play two years of basketball for the Storm, stepping down her senior year to pursue other career opportunities. She said the highlight was going to the NCAA Tournament her freshman year.
      As a student at Simpson, Boulton completed two internships with the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) and this past fall, she spent time interning in operations at Norwalk High School.
       Her first summer internship in 2022 at the IGHSAU, Boulton did content creation and social media while assisting onsite at their spring and summer championships. Her second year started earlier in May 2023, which gave her the opportunity to take on more responsibility.
    “Each sport at the IGHSAU has a primary and secondary administrator, and I was the secondary administrator on tennis this past spring,” she said. “I was able to plan every detail, create each regional bracket for each class, and be the boots on the ground running the tournament.”
       Boulton said from the start of the process, she learned how to draft a manual, create rules meetings for coaches and officials, and determine regional host sites based on facilities and rankings.
     “I was on-site at the championships to determine where signage should go, where awards would be staged, and how the event would flow overall,” said Boulton. “I also worked on many contingency and safety plans such as booking indoor facilities, scheduling athletic trainers for the events, and communicating weather dates.”
     “At the championship itself, I setup signage, coordinated the national anthem singer, ticket takers, program sales, merchandise sales, and presented awards at the end of the event,” added Boulton. “This was the most helpful experience in discovering my passion in operations.”
        At Norwalk, Boulton experienced operations on a smaller level.
      “While learning so much in both of these places (Norwalk and the IGHSAU), I realized that I like operations at a big level that plans big events every few months,” she said. “This has shaped my future career path.”
     When asked about her overall experience at Simpson, Boulton said she’s done so much including being involved in numerous clubs and organizations, serving as class president, mentoring in-coming freshman and most importantly, making lasting relationships.
      “I’ve always felt supported here as I shifted from an athlete to a non-athlete, from job to job, and even as I’m about to leave,” Boulton said of her time at Simpson.
     As for the future, Boulton’s career goals including working in operations/event management at a governing body, whether that’s a conference office (Big 10, Big 12, etc.), the NCAA or the state level at the IGHSAU.