STONY BROOK, N.Y. — Who says a football player can't land a Major League Baseball front-office job?
Former Stony Brook graduate student and football player Ryan Sollazzo is the proof.
Sollazzo played on the defensive line for the Seawolves during the 2009 season as a graduate transfer after he spent his undergraduate career with Florida Atlantic. Now, he is senior director for global corporate partnerships for MLB, a career that was shaped during his time at Stony Brook.
"Stony Brook taught me several things," Sollazzo said. "From a personal standpoint, it helped me further improve my interpersonal skills, which really comes in handy in my job today. Coming from Florida and transitioning to New York, there was an organic need to be able to adapt to my surroundings. Stony Brook football offered me the opportunity to find common ground with multiple types of people and teammates from different backgrounds, cultures, geographical locations and interests.
"Having the ability to do find common ground with others and align their needs and goals with mine are key to my success now in the business world. With MLB, I travel the globe and deal with business all over the world, ranging from every region of the United States, to Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, China, Saudi Arabia, India and others. Despite the various language barriers and different business cultures, I'm able to find common ground with each corporation's business executives, allowing them to relax and trust while aligning their business strategy to a collective vision of forming and working toward one goal —
a global partnership."
Sollazzo began to recognize that a career in the business of sports was possible while he attended FAU and the university was campaigning to have a new on-campus football stadium built. He worked closely with university and athletic department officials during that time, after being elected as the student-athlete ambassador.
"I worked with our AD to help raise awareness of the financial benefits an on-campus facility would bring the community and its surrounding places of commerce and various hospitality industries," he said. "We also built a business plan and sales strategy to find a naming-rights partner for the stadium. That's when I was first introduced to the business side of sports. At that moment, it dawned on me I could still be involved in sports after my days on the field. During the project, I started to understand the business side of sports and became very curious of all the different revenue streams that the football program was contributing to the school."
He went on to intern with the NHL's Florida Panthers, an opportunity that led to a full-time job offer.
But Sollazzo wasn't ready to give up playing football just yet.
"Despite the rarity of the opportunity, I decided I wanted to finish my football eligibility on the field and go get my master's degree right after undergrad rather than doing it later," Sollazzo said.
That led him to Long Island and to the Seawolves.
"Coming in as a recruited fifth-year senior, I was expected to deliver for my team and program," Sollazzo said. "I was put into a high-pressure leadership role right from the start. That is one reason I am not afraid to take calculated risks and know how to perform under pressure. I believe a key to very successful business leaders is to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I started to form this trait at Stony Brook. High-pressure situations are something I like to think I thrive in. It separates me from others. Stony Brook taught me how to be extremely organized and have the ability to prioritize my options while planning ahead my next move."
Sollazzo, in his one season, helped lead the Seawolves to the program's first Big South co-championship. But a ring wasn't the only thing he took away from his time at Stony Brook.
"To this day, I'm very impressed with Stony Brook's continued commitment to their student-athletes and the overall success of the program," Sollazzo said. "Stony Brook has a great sense of awareness of what's going to help prepare their student-athletes after their time is done.
"I'm also lucky that my best friends to this day are my Stony Brook teammates. Think about that. I went to FAU for four years and my best friends came from a place I played just one year. That says something about the type of people who attend Stony Brook and the relationships that are built through the program."
