As a non-athlete, Cristine Paull, ’94, has a big impact on the sports fan experience.

Cristine Paull, ’94, has participated in every Super Bowl since 2004, along with Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Commonwealth Games, and MLB Special Events.

But she’s never been an athlete.

Instead, the La Salle alumna has played an equally important role in major sporting events for the past three decades: running transportation and logistics. She’s currently the vice president of SP+ Gameday, where she helps oversee thousands of staff in and around venues across North America, including the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the NFL Super Bowl, the College Football Playoff, and numerous music festivals.

“Sadly, I am not a great athlete,” Paull said. “But I grew up in a sports household, so I started figuring out other ways to get involved.”

As a kid, sports were a constant in the Paull household, whether on TV or at live events. Her father, George Paull, ’67, played on La Salle’s men’s basketball team and was inducted into the University’s Hall of Athletes in 1981.

One of her first official steps into the sporting world was becoming a certified volleyball official by the Women’s Sports Foundation while in high school. At La Salle, she scored a work-study job in the Athletic Department. She obtained marketing experience at both that job and via internships at Temple University and Allied Advertising.

Paull always stayed busy.

While in athletics at La Salle, she learned to be the person willing to do anything. She worked the front desk, sold hotdogs at swim meets, and wrote press releases.

“Because the job was doing whatever it took to get the job done,” Paull said.

The summer she graduated from La Salle, she headed straight to Boston, where she worked on the 1994 Men’s World Cup before attending Ohio University to complete a master’s degree in sports administration.

Then, she was off to the 1996 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Atlanta, managing transportation for staff and volunteers.

“Once you’ve done the Olympics, it’s like, what’s left to do?” Paull questioned. She then worked various gigs across the D.C. metro area and Canada before moving to Salt Lake City for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Her main job? Hire 1,300 people for the parking team. It was the early 2000’s, so she couldn’t rely on online hiring platforms or social media. Instead, she went to county fairs in several small towns dotting Utah.

“I was able to win [candidates] over because I was very direct about job expectations, time period, shift times, and more importantly the money they’d earn,” Paull said.

By the time she returned to the East Coast, Paull, 30 at the time, was burned out and wondering if she should leave gig work. Then she got a job offer from someone she used to work with, to become the managing director of operations for Gameday Management Group, now known as SP+ Gameday. Paull has been there for more than 20 years.

She feels lucky to have made a career out of sports and live events, and she’s realized that what happens off the field is just as important as the game.

“There are a lot of important, behind-the-scenes logistics, and if you don’t do them right, then the typical fan doesn’t have a great experience,” she said.

Paull sees her current role not just operationally. Through the success of managing transportation systems, mobility service programs, and parking operations, she’s making sure guests are taken care of from the first moment they enter the venue to when they leave.

She prides herself on building a core team, including opportunities for graduate students and nontraditional workers.

The field isn’t glamorous: working the Super Bowl might sound like a dream, until you realize your eyes will never be on the actual game itself, but rather a 10-day timeline with a mountain of responsibilities, from preparing upwards of 1,000 staff members to managing the transportation and mobility operations while sitting in NFL Control for hours upon hours.

But there are perks, including invites to parties with athletes like Olympic champion and former American figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi.

For young people who want to get into the world of sports, Paull recommends finding your passion and utilizing your connections. It’s how she scored gigs in several major live events. Her connections expanded her horizons and helped her realize her strengths. She found her niche and went for it.

Her main advice? “You need to understand that very rarely you start in the job you believe you deserve,” Paull said. “There are a lot of opportunities that can help you figure out exactly what you want to do. Whether it’s an internship or a temporary job at an arena, just get involved.”

Maybe the next job isn’t even close to what you envisioned, but that same unexpected path is what helped Paull succeed in her career.

“The biggest thing people bring to an organization is their life experience and knowledge base,” Paull said. “If you only do one small thing, you’re missing the bigger picture, so keep your eyes open. You never know what’s going to jump out.”

—Taylor Goebel