Today we’d like to introduce you to Troy Kirby.
Hi Troy, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I always start with the fact that I work with amazing people, regardless of the job, or position. Too many of us, and I was a victim of it early, do the career track instead of just enjoy the moment, then we regret not knowing how good we had it until it was gone. I went back to the college athletic director’s conference in Las Vegas (NACDA), and it was the 10 year anniversary of the National Association of Athletic Ticket Sales & Operations (NAATSO) that I helped start. What was once a pipe-dream of having ticket folks in college athletics get together with a seat at the table is now a hard-charging group of young professionals who are commanding the head of the table. It was amazing for me to see 600+ members, 250+ attendees, to a group that had started small but had passionate people every step of the way continue its growth. I couple that with my new-found enjoyment of teaching at Saint Martin’s University in the School of Business. We are doing business courses, sports management courses, and I’ve placed 14 students in internships, with 1 graduating student in a full-time job with a professional sports team. I am older, still trying to be wiser, but enjoying the moment more. I work with great people at every step. This is no different than my time working the state’s gambling regulatory commission or when I worked for the state legislature’s house caucus or at the public affairs TV station TVW which covered public affairs. Every step along the way, including owning my own bar during the pandemic shutdowns, allowed me to understand how enjoyable things are when you step back and recognize the people around you, and what they mean to you. Going back to NACDA, I also saw three or four old bosses at different college athletic stops throughout my 20 years in the business. “Remember when” may be a common source of conversation, but it matters when you are able to enjoy the people who mentored you and you mentored along the way.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
At age 4, I was paralyzed from the neck down for 6 months, with a surgery that was risky and I was the youngest to have it in 1980. I had to learn how to walk again. I wore a full chest body cast. Boo hoo. I get to walk, stand and so what if I couldn’t play high school contact sports or lift heavy things. We should be thankful for what we have received. In 2022, I was dying from undiagnosed type-2 diabetes, when I finally got into the doctor, my a1c was 13.3 (an a1c of 10 is considered bad). I worked hard to control my diet, some exercise, and got my a1c to 5.4 within 1 1/2 years. It is all about mindset and focus. This is not my sole story or the ending of it. I rarely mention it. I could bring up a ton of plight, a ton of issues, but that gets into one of the issues we have in this world, where everyone acts “put upon” as if they are the only people with injury or issues. When I went to South Africa in 2021, I saw struggles of a different core. Things like that put you in perspective. Where nice neighborhoods have walls with barbwire to protect themselves. Where I tipped a server $15 and she said that was half her salary for the month (Rand is 18 to 1 to the US dollar). I could bring up a lot of things, a lot of issues, and say how hard I’ve had it. The truth is, we all are crashing into each other, and we all have different issues. Mine are no bigger than someone else and I’ve probably gotten away with a lot, growing up in the 1980s / 1990s before everything was video’d / photo’d and placed on the internet to allow me to later be fired from some job because I wasn’t grown enough to know what I truly thought or what I was truly saying. I never wanted to be famous, never wanted to be the attention-seeker, which I find horrifying when other people claim that’s what they want. Be careful what you wish for.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I enjoy teaching at Saint Martin’s University. I did it in the Spring of 2023, with one marketing class as an adjunct. It was fun to chat with the students, engage with them, and reduce the amount of nonsense down to what I knew and what I could teach them. One thing that I’ve learned is that young students are really trying to get a sense if it is worth their time to come to class (are you merely showing YouTube videos or are you delivering something?). I tend not to do too much video unless its necessary. The core is to have them not do group work outside of class as much as engage as a group inside of class. The Socratic method is making a comeback as so many of them have ZOOM’d out that it feels like the only way to get their attention. Plus, I like to put forward papers, writing as much as possible to push them to think, by creating scenarios, especially unwinnable scenarios where they have to fight through the issue (if they choose to quit or walk away, they fail). Because in life, they will encounter several issues or scenarios that they will be around regardless of whether they like it or not. The goal is to face these challenges with the ability to know how to at least handle them.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
It matters that I know I’ve made a positive impact on people. If I were told that I let them down, that would probably crush me. Because it means that I didn’t deliver on my end.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stmartin.edu/directory/offices-departments-directory/school-business
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troykirby/
- Twitter: @sportstao
- Youtube: @TroyKirby
