MU| F e a t u r e s
T
he perfect summer morning for
Tyler Lantz ’16 looks a lot like
this one.
He sits at a table in front of the concourse at
Parkview Field, and the colors come at him
in vivid chunks: Blue of the sky, green of
the grass, beige of the groomed dirt around
home plate and the pitcher’s mound. A sweet
little breeze whispers around the place. From
down on the manicured diamond comes the
soft mutter of a mower as the ground crew
spruces up what is already immaculately
spruced.
Nine hours to first pitch, and all is well. For
both Parkview Field and for Lantz, who is
literally living the dream these days.
Five years ago he got a summer job with the
Fort Wayne TinCaps Class A baseball team as
a parking lot attendant, and now he works for
them full-time as a ticket account manager.
It’s the culmination of a series of summer
internships in which he caught the eye of
TinCaps’ management by coming in on his
off-days to shadow full-time employees such
as facilities and accounting manager Eric Lose
and Abby Naas, then the TinCaps’ community
relations manager.
“Just an absolutely unreal experience,” Lantz
says. “You know, I’m from Fort Wayne, and
you see how great this place is, but you truly
don’t understand how much time and effort
goes into this place until you get to see behind
the scenes.
“As soon as the season starts up, we’re
working 70 to 90 hours a week. It’s unreal. But
once you see the product and just the result
of all that hard work, it’s priceless.”
His job in group sales, after all, is about
serving others – in Lantz’ case, making sure
the customers with whom he deals have the
optimum experience no matter who they
are and how many times they’ve been to the
ballpark.
If that doesn’t fit Manchester’s charge
to respect the infinite worth of every
individual, Lantz doesn’t know what does.
“It was probably the greatest decision of
my life to go to Manchester,” he says.
“I learned so much about just like how you
view everyone equally. It’s not all about you;
you have to consider each and every other
person and treat them the way they want to
be treated.
“Coming here, I can kind of just move
that into customer service – treat each and
every person as if this is their first time to
Parkview Field.”
But if this is the perfect melding of
education and job, there is a certain
amount of serendipity to it. Lantz came to
Manchester initially because his dad had
gone there; the job with the TinCaps came
open mere days after he’d finished his last
internship with the TinCaps and taken a job
with a marketing firm in Fort Wayne.
“I’m two days (into the new job) and I’m out
in Philadelphia, and (TinCaps president) Mike
Nutter gives me a phone call,” Lantz recalls.
“Probably the most stressful week of my life.
I mean, I’d started this new job, it was fun, I
liked the people I was working with. But I had
spent so much time and I just loved being here,
I loved the staff, and just getting the chance to
work for Mike Nutter ... it was unreal.”
So the baseball guy took the baseball job. Just
as he took to Manchester once he got there and
discovered its unique and nurturing culture.
“Manchester was just awesome because
there’s so many different people, and being
such a small community as well, you get to
know everybody,” Lantz says. “And just the
friendships and the staff you meet over the
four years, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
I went there by myself, I didn’t go with any
friends, and just the whole sports management
program ... Ryan Hedstrom ’00 just did such
an awesome job preparing me for this. And
with it being smaller, too, you’re in a lot more
contact with everyone.
“It gives you the freedom to go out and follow
your dreams, essentially.”
From perfect summer morning to perfect
summer morning.
By Benjamin Smith
For Tyler Lantz ’16, going to
the office means Parkview
Field, home of the TinCaps, in
downtown Fort Wayne.
It also dovetails neatly with the values he
learned at Manchester, where he studied sport
management and sales and played baseball.
Manchester | 33