Spotlight on the Sidelines: UO alumni commit to community through sports

Luke Domenick is part of the new generation of creatives turning masterful plays and unforgettable game moments into artful videos that engage fans. He serves as a seasonal assistant producer for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Before he was supporting one of the NFL’s top performing teams with all things videography, he was a creative intern for the UO’s athletic department. From helping shoot for fan-favorite video series Ducks vs Them to turning around in-game highlights, Domenick explored his passion for sports and creativity.

“There's nothing that beats the thrill of shooting a sports game. . .but what I love most about the job is the storytelling and the creativeness and the cinematography,” Domenick told UOAA.  

Having graduated in 2025, Domenick is motivated to continue learning and developing, drawing on his lessons from UO, including the importance of balance that, “having free time to yourself in your mind is equally as important [as working hard.]”

"The biggest thing I feel has helped me is to never feel like I'm the smartest person in the room and always look for how to learn more and just have that knowledge.”

— Luke Domenick, BA ’25 (journalism)

Samantha Berman, MBA ’24; BA ’22 (public relations and journalism) always knew she wanted to work in sports, but it wasn’t until she got to the UO that she found her passion for sports business. Growing up as a competitive swimmer, she learned the value of teamwork early on, an experience that led her to seek camaraderie in her professional life. Today, she works as the Events and Hospitality Coordinator at the College Football Playoff.

As an undergraduate student at the UO, Berman found that sense of kinship while serving as a manager for the beach volleyball team. With support from the Women in Flight program, she secured an internship with the indoor volleyball team as a graduate student while in the Warsaw Sports Business Center. Through that internship, she gained firsthand experience in fundraising and event planning. As part of her master’s program, Berman went on experiential learning trips to New York City and Europe, where she built professional relationships and learned how to pitch herself to industry leaders in pursuit of a career in sports business. 

“Each of my experiences at Oregon. . . I had to build relationships, and that really helped me craft my story, because I was talking to so many different people,” she shared on the This is Oregon podcast.  

Now, as the Events and Hospitality Coordinator at the College Football Playoff, she manages over 29 VIP events each year, from events at the National Championship to meetings throughout the off-season.

“Reach out to people. Don’t be afraid to send that first message. . . As many people as you can talk to and network with is going to be the most beneficial because it’s really where you’re going to learn the direction and route you want to go down.”

— Samantha Berman, MBA ’24; BA ’24 (public relations and journalism)

Kyle Waters has pushed women’s basketball ticket sales forward for the last two decades with the Seattle Storm. Hailing from California, the UO’s focus on sports marketing drew Waters up north to Oregon, where he developed his skills in sales alongside the UO’s developing football team.“

.It was a lot of fun to be the team behind the team,” he said about helping recruit star players to Oregon’s ranks. With mentorship from Jeff Hawkins, his job search leading up to graduation led him to the Seattle Storm, where he has now worked for over 20 years. Soon after joining the organization, he became the top revenue producer in the WNBA in 2008 and has continued to push the WNBA’s sales forward.

What drives him to keep supporting women’s basketball is the community around it. “Sports is a way to spend time with the people we love and care about,” he told the UOAA. Though that feeling is amazing in every present moment, focusing on the long game is what keeps bringing him success.  

“The way that I've been able to get to this position is doing things in a long term sustainable way that we could grow year after year  without doing any shortcuts. . . everything I've been doing in my life I viewed as a marathon, not a sprint.”

— Kyle Waters, BS ’05 (business administration)

Kelsey Philpott is inspired every day by the community that sport creates and works to foster that connection with the team he leads at Major League Baseball (MLB).  

Philpott began his career in sports marketing in Canada working for local MMA promotions. But even before that, he grew up immersed in sports, working at Assiniboia Downs during horse races. After earning a degree in finance, he realized he wanted to make an impact in the sports world and chose to attend the  UO for his master’s in sports business.  

“The idea that I could be part of entertaining someone and bring something to them that could give them escape from their day-to-day life, give them an opportunity to socialize with friends, give them an opportunity to scream in public like a crazy person. . . was really exciting to me,” Philpott shared.  

Following his time at UO, Philpott spent nearly a decade in consulting before moving on to roles with the New York Rangers and the Vancouver Canucks. He now works for the MLB. “I'm grateful to be working for a company and in an industry that wants to evolve and get better and do really special things. I'm grateful to have an opportunity to, in some small way, you know, impact the lives of millions of people. Sports just felt like the most natural way to do that.”

“This world maybe isn't as big and as scary as it seems. . . For as much as any given moment can seem scary or daunting. . . sports have this really cool ability to just settle people, even for just a moment.”

— Kelsey Philpott, MBA ’11

After serving as a manager for the UO Beach Volleyball team, Cesira Cook is now building up young athletes in her hometown of Las Vegas as a middle school volleyball coach. These experiences are helping her build towards a career in sports psychology.  

Cook grew up playing volleyball and travelling with her family to watch track and field events, so when it came time for college, her memories of Hayward and Oregon’s sports culture drew her to the UO from Nevada.

Though she no longer plays volleyball, serving as a manager helped her stay connected to the sport she loves. “It was definitely an adjustment, but at the end of the day, I was just happy to still be involved in sports and have that kind of structure,” she said.  

Now lifting up young athletes in her own community, Cook is impacting players’ lives in many of the same ways she was. “It's definitely rewarding because I was lucky with my experience with coaches. . .It's been really nice because it's giving back to something that helped me grow as a person and shaped me to be the person I am now,” she shared.

“It is very nice to be able to be one of the coaches where you can see a girl is excited to go to practice because you're there. . . you see the positive impact right in front of your face.”

— Cesira Cook, BA ’25 (psychology)

Todd Zimbelman has spent his career instilling a passion for performance in young musicians, from his time as director of athletic bands at the UO to his current role as the director of bands at West Salem High School.

When Zimbelman performed at the Festival of Bands in 1985 as a high schooler, he never expected his trumpet solo to get him a personal invite from the UO’s band director to join the program. With encouragement from his high school band director and support from the rest of the band at Oregon, he grew as an artist, performer, and leader, eventually graduating and working as the band director at Grants Pass High School for six years.

In 1999, Zimbelman returned to the UO when one of the band’s drum majors encouraged him to apply for the position of director of athletic bands. From 1999 to 2005, he taught hundreds of future music educators while also energizing the crowd in Autzen Stadium.  

During that time, he drew inspiration from his mentors while also developing  his own style. “I wanted to try to set up an in between style marching band where. . . it was entertaining to the audience from the standpoint of recognizable themes, but I wanted to teach the students that were going to be music ed students in the program. . . It was entertainment for the audience, but also it gave me the foundation to teach the music ed students how to do marching band from a competitive standpoint,” he told the UOAA.

“That is probably the biggest pride you feel. When you see former students come back around, now they're teaching and they are not following in your footsteps, but they're doing the thing, and doing great. I think the full circle thing for me is asking, how can I give back right now? How could I teach, help teach teachers, mentor anybody I could mentor? How can I help share as much as I can with the time I have left?”

— Todd Zimbelman, BMus ’92; MMus ’99 (music education)

Drake Hills began his journey as a sports journalist at Oregon,  where he learned to understand and tell the human side of sport. 

Today, he is pivoting to sports social work to support young athletes by uniting their humanity with their performance. Previously, he served as a contributing writer for Black Players for Change, an organization focused on lifting the stories and voices of Black men in soccer, a historically white-dominated sport. 

Hills grew up playing basketball and soccer, and it was the encouragement from a high school English teacher that pushed him to pursue telling the stories of the human side of sports. While studying journalism at UO, he covered athletics for the campus radio, KWVA 88.1 FM, wrote about the women’s soccer team for UO Athletics, and wrote for the Daily Emerald.  

Now, Hills is teaching the next generation of sports journalists to tell the diverse stories within the sports world. Having gotten to know so many athletes in his career, he decided to pursue a career in sports social work, supporting players on and off the field, particularly serving Black men balancing their lives as athletes. The question of balance is something he strives to focus on. 

“You have these roles, and you know what's expected of you and  how to identify what you do, but the challenge is, who are you outside of the game? Who are you outside of the sport?” he shared. “My goal is to help young people understand the life span of living in sports and have them zoom out and think about  the other cycles that come after the actual playing of the sport to help them remain in the community and feel that they are still a part of something larger than themselves in sports.”  

“It's not me that's going to change people, it's the greater impact of sports that's going to change people.”

— Drake Hills, BA ’18 (journalism)