How I got my cool Job
I have a cool job. A blunt way to start my story, but as the threads get pulled across continents, navigate multiple sub-plots and traverse 8 years of life, beginning at the end is necessary. Presently, I am an implementation consultant at Hudl, a video analysis software provider. The LinkedIn summary of my day-to-day is I conduct online and in-person trainings with MLS, NHL, NBA and Big Ten University teams to implement best-practice analysis workflows. I get to travel the country, meet interesting people and watch a lot of sport. It’s awesome, it’s my dream job, and it took a long time to get here.
This whole story is going to be rather self-serving to my ego. Though where I am necessitated lots of hard work and patience, it’s important to emphasize how reliant I was on luck — I have been incredibly lucky. Not only in my background — supportive parents, attended good schools, etc. — but in every step of the journey I have been lifted by some aspect of fortune. Acknowledging those fortunes, while understanding fortune is often accompanied by and the consequence of hard work, is important to recognize.
In 2015 I started my Bachelors of Sports Coaching degree at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand. Though the United States has undergraduate degrees focussing on the subject of coaching, the degree I started was unique in it had a major in performance analysis: the vocation of using video and data to analyze athletic performance. Before attending UC, I didn’t know performance analysis was a thing, but after completing the introductory course I quickly fell in love with the complexity and depth of the subject.
The following year, in 2016, I continued my studies in performance analysis before leaving New Zealand for the first time to attend Purdue University on a student exchange. American sport, primarily American Football, had been a passion of mine for a while. Sunday Night Football in America is actually Monday afternoon football in New Zealand, so it was the only live sport on after school. Naturally, I started following college football and seeing the magnitude of the stadiums along with the fanaticism of the surrounding culture, I had to go and see it for myself.
While at Purdue I contributed in no way to athletics. Though I attended a couple of basketball and football games, the entire experience was essentially a glorified holiday. However, it only strengthened my obsession for American sport and I knew it’s where I eventually wanted to be.
Returning home in 2017 I started my internship with the Crusaders, a professional rugby franchise in Christchurch, New Zealand. It’s difficult to emphasize the relative success of the Crusaders franchise: In the first 26 years the team has existed, the Crusadersn have won the championship 11 times. They embody excellence in their culture and operations — including analysis. Interning there is a golden ticket, and I got very, very lucky.
Before I went to Purdue the director of my university degree introduced me to the Crusaders head analyst. Due to the small size of my class and my good grades I was selected as an intern when I returned. The word ‘selected’ is generous as there was no selection process. The same position now requires a resume and multiple interviews — I just had to show up.
With resources at my disposal along with participating in an elite environment, I quickly learnt more than any degree could provide. Analysis in New Zealand is years ahead of the United States in its perceived significance in the organization, and the processes teams undertake to execute it. An analyst isn’t a placeholder position for future coaches, or buried in a dark room in the buildings corner, but rather a highly-valued, respected position which involves knowledge of the sport and analysis softwares.
Though learning Sportscode was part of my degrees curriculum, using it every day I really started to love using the product; the customization, the tips and tricks; the way it combined sport and academics. Further, having access to it whenever allowed me to use it for projects and interests outside of rugby. Understanding I was graduating at the end of 2017 (degrees in New Zealand are typically three years), and knowing the United States was where I wanted to be, I began crafting a portfolio. I didn’t understand basketball at all so I started with soccer. Using Sportscode I tagged a West Virginia-North Carolina soccer match, completed a report and sent it around. I got nothing back.
I didn’t understand college athletic departments at all. I didn’t know graduate assistants existed; I didn’t know what sports got funding; I didn’t know a soccer program probably didn’t have Sportscode and if they did they certainly wouldn’t hire some kid from New Zealand as their analyst — I was incredibly naive. But I was persistent. Acknowledging soccer wouldn’t be the pathway forward, I jumped into basketball. However, having never touched the sport, I needed to learn. Fortunately, my performance analysis lecturer was a basketball coach and analyst and provided some opportunities to get my feet wet in the space. Following my soccer blueprint, I started coding and writing reports on college basketball games. Knowing analysis isn’t best explained through words, I recorded and uploaded my findings to YouTube.
My first YouTube videos were short clips to show some particular concept I was trying to explain, e.g. — Purdue’s offensive sets from 2017. I understood it is much easier for prospective employers to understand my worth through seeing my knowledge of the sport and technology over reading paragraphs and seeing pictures. I completed three reports: Purdue vs. Michigan, Clemson vs. North Carolina and St. Mary’s vs. Gonzaga. I then did the thing you’re not supposed to do: I sent those reports — a mixture of written work and video — along with an introductory email, to quite literally every division one college in the United States. You won’t be shocked to know barely anyone responded. Those who did said I could volunteer, be a student manager or just said “no”. One response did stick out though.
My nativity didn’t comprehend the level at which college basketball teams did not care about Sportscode or video analysis in general. One exception was Ohio State’s video coordinator Kyle Davis. He recognized the value of my Sportscode work and sent back a message of encouragement. Though it was still a no, his receptiveness was something I remembered. Now understanding no one was going to just give me a job, I took the advice of several email responses and looked into the concept of being a graduate assistant.
Thinking it made sense to get my Masters Degree in something resembling my interest, I searched for a Master’s program in sports coaching. I applied to four schools: West Virginia, Indiana State, Mississippi State and Georgia; and then during my last scour of the internet I realized Ohio State had a Master of Sports Coaching degree, of which applications were due that very day! I frantically collected the necessary documents, sent them in and waited.
In 2018 I interned for the Crusaders again while working part-time as a labourer. It was quite a contrast between tearing down drywall and filling dumpsters to using Sportscode while being surrounded New Zealand’s most famous athletes. Being in the Crusaders environment was essential for having access to Sportscode to continue my American pursuit. The initial four schools I applied to all accepted me, but I didn’t respond as I was waiting for the school I cared for the most. Once Ohio State accepted me, I reached back out to Kyle proposing a graduate assistant/video coordinator hybrid role. He said yes — I was going to Columbus.
However, before I departed, I had five months to kill. Between laboring and fulfilling my Crusaders responsibilities, I started to record and release Sportscode tutorials to my YouTube channel. While initially I covered basics: code buttons, labels, links, etc., I moved into scripting and code and output windows. These got me recognized by Hudl and started the network building which would become essential four years later.
In August 2018 I made my way to Columbus for what should have been two years of experience. I lasted five months. Despite being one of the richest athletic departments in the United States, Ohio State does not provide their graduate assistants tuition waivers. International tuition was completely unsustainable. While lots of significant things happened during those five months, three would become pivotal in my journey going forward. Firstly, I learnt an incredible amount about the American analysis culture, Sportscode, and college athletics. It’s hard to overstate how different college athletics is to every other sporting context in the world, so being immersed in it was important to navigating the following years.
Secondly, given the popularity of my YouTube videos, I officially ‘branded’ the channel and started selling my code and output windows under the name ‘O’Connell Codes’. Though O’Connell Codes was never a full-scale business —it paid for my coffee habit — the network and visibility it gave me became invaluable. With an ‘official’ platform, I could consult in my spare time to help understand analysis workflows in other sports.
Finally, and most importantly, I met my now wife.
Despite trying everything possible to stay at Ohio State I returned to New Zealand in an awkward position. I wanted to be in the United States but had no way of staying there; and I had removed myself from rugby where I could no longer land an analysis position in New Zealand. So I went back to laboring… for 19 months. During this time I clung to the analysis industry through O’Connell Codes. I had some significant clients like North Carolina, Texas, Purdue and Georgia in basketball; the English FA and Maccabi Tel Aviv in soccer; along with a collection of random organizations around the world: teams, universities and non-profits. I could not afford my own Sportscode license, but through the YouTube channel I had built a community which valued the content I produced. Every now-and-then I received emails about how the videos had assisted analysts in their careers or got them jobs. A connection provided me a Sportscode license for over two years; and when he asked for it back I asked my network for help. They responded — I was sent three more!
This was still a busy time in my journey. My future wife had moved to New Zealand and we started the required paperwork for her to sponsor my United States visa. Helping my former university professor, I was an analyst with the Canterbury Rams, a semi-professional basketball team in Christchurch. I continued recording YouTube videos on Sportscode and basketball analysis. Hudl had known me for a while at this point, but given the popularity and ubiquity of my videos, I started forming several connections within the company; and when in September, 2020, my wife and I moved back to Columbus permanently, I kept those connections close.
Arriving in the United States, I couldn’t work for 8 months due to visa restrictions. After keeping myself busy — doing more consulting, recording more videos, keeping my network active — I eventually started working as a mortgage underwriter, waiting for the opportune analysis position to open. Then finally, after another year, in May 2022, Hudl opened the position of implementation consultant, a role which responsibilities matched exactly what I had been doing independently for three-and-a-half years.
After being a satellite of the analysis community for seven years, I was getting my first actual job within it; training and educating professional sports organizations and the occasional college on using Sportscode and other Hudl products. From the University of Canterbury, the Crusaders, Ohio State, O’Connell Codes, the Canterbury Rams; from laboring, to studying, to more laboring, and then mortgage underwriting; I had the job I wanted, where I wanted. Fortune, persistence, patience and hard-work had got me here.
So what’s next? Though I am not completely sure, the hope is to combine my current role in implementation with education, both within Hudl and outside of it through collaborating with universities and non-profits.
