Passion for Professional Sports: Alumni Turn Dreams into Careers

Pitcher Perfect: John Davis ’24, Pitching Analyst for the Toronto Blue Jays

John Davis ’24 has dedicated much of his life to one of his greatest passions: baseball. When injuries sidelined his Assumption pitching career, Davis took the opportunity to merge his academic and extracurricular passions.

“I spent that sideline time learning a lot about the mathematics and computer science side of the sport,” he says. 

As a data analytics major, Davis studied a combination of those subjects under professors across multiple disciplines, including Joseph Alfano, Demetrius Kantarelis, and Suzanne Kozak.

To enter the professional world of baseball research and analytics, he took on a summer role with the Hyannis Harbor Hawks, a Cape Cod Baseball League team, as an assistant coach. Described as a “super-genius” in the Boston Globe by Hawks general manager Nick Johnson, Davis led a team of baseball operations interns, influencing the team’s strategies and development. 

“Within two minutes, I was like, ‘well, this kid is a savant,’” Johnson recalled in the 2023 Globe article about their initial phone call. 

After graduating from Assumption in 2024, Davis continued his studies in data science at Fordham University following a recommendation from Kantarelis, who received a master’s degree there. While at Fordham, he received an internship with the Toronto Blue Jays, which led to his present full-time role as a pitching analyst for the team. Davis works with motion data, translating it into insights that help players optimize their pitches and reduce the risk of injuries. 

“It’s important to find what you’re interested in when you’re starting a career in professional sports,” he says. “If you’re really passionate about what you’re doing, it makes the long days shorter and the job a lot easier—and it’s amazing to see something you worked on translated into strategy.”

Davis found a way to turn his passion into his career, with help from a strong community and academic foundation at Assumption.

“I really appreciated my time at Assumption,” he says. “I benefited from the small class size and personal connections with faculty. When I got into the world of baseball research, I was able to go to Professor Alfano’s office, or to see Professor Kantarelis, and talk through specific things one on one. Each of the professors I had at Assumption was of the highest pedigree.”  

 

From Worcester to Washington: Jacqueline Avola ’18, Game Presentation Manager for the Washington Capitals

When the Bruins won the Stanley Cup in 2011, Jacqueline Avola ’18 found a passion for the puck.

“I’ll admit it: I was a bandwagon fan,” she says. “I fell in love with hockey—it became one of my favorite pastimes. Then my advisor helped me realize I could make a career out of what I loved so much, and that’s exactly what I did.”

Avola became an organizational communication major with minors in sport management and French, inspired by courses that gave her insights to the real world of sports. During her junior year, fate—and the Worcester Railers—stepped in.

“When the Railers came to town [in 2017], I realized it was a perfect opportunity for me. A brand-new hockey team just showed up at my front door,” she says. “I got an internship before there was even a team on the ice, and I was part of the integral work of building the front office from the ground up.”

Avola worked with the Railers for six years in a variety of roles, including as an intern, corporate fulfillment coordinator, and director of sponsorship activation & game operations.

While there, she got to know Assumption Professor and Media Supervisor Tom Burke, who also leads game day production with the Railers.

“Tom was a mentor to me during my time there, and we bonded over our shared love for Assumption,” Avola says. 

When a position with the Washington Capitals in game presentation opened, Avola took the leap—and made the move.

“It was my first move away from home, as I was a commuter at Assumption, so it was a big deal, but I’m really glad I did it,” she says.

Avola now works as a Game Presentation Manager, playing a vital role in the fan experience at Capitals games. 

“Game presentation is everything that’s happening around you at a sporting event that’s not the play on the field or on the ice,” she says. “The music, the lights, a fan contest, videos playing…my team and I work on that.”

Assumption helped Avola make the connection between her professional career and her sports passion: through the experience off the ice. 

“We’re making the experience for fans,” she says. “We’re giving someone the opportunity to decompress, have fun, and forget about the real world for a little while. We get to be creative every day.”

 

Determination and Destiny: Timothy Capurso ’18, Writer for Sports Illustrated

It took a little prompting from Professor Paul Shields for Timothy Capurso ’18 to declare his writing and mass communications major at Assumption. 

“I remember writing this paper for his class, and at the bottom he left a note asking if I had considered studying journalism,” Capurso says. “At the time, it didn’t really click for me—I wasn’t thinking about that subject at all. But he made me consider it, so I started taking more English classes, and eventually switched my major.

“The way Professor Shields spoke about topics would make me think differently about them, and he had a major influence on the way I work now,” Capurso continues.  

He cites classes with English Professors Mike Land, Shahara Drew, and David Nordman as setting the foundation for his future as a journalist at Sports Illustrated. 

“Professor Nordman set up this press conference-style arrangement where we were able to ask former Athletic Director Nick Smith questions about Assumption sports,” he says. “That was my first taste of sports journalism.”  

During his sophomore year, Capurso joined Assumption’s student newspaper, Le Provocateur, as a sports journalist, later becoming editor of the section. 

“My experience at the Provoc was one of the best I had at Assumption. Between the writing, the doors it opened for me, and the camaraderie in the newsroom…it was all great,” he continues. 

Associate Professor of English Becky DiBiasio helped Capurso acquire his first internship, at iSports Web, a sports information website founded in 2009. 

“That internship got me into the field and got my name out there,” he says.

After graduation, Capurso worked at multiple different sports media companies, including Minute Media, RotoBaller, and ClutchPoints, until, after a lot of persistence, he received an offer to work on the breaking and trending sports team at Sports Illustrated. 

Capurso now writes primarily about tennis, college football, and baseball for the magazine, and the work he is doing is reaching big names in baseball—even across the country. 

“I wrote this article about how at minor league games, you can sit behind home plate, inches behind players—sometimes, even big-name players doing rehab assignments—and that these games should be getting more attention,” Capurso says.  

The article was titled “Minor League Baseball Games Should be Having a Major Moment”, and a week after it ran on Sports Illustrated, Eric Edelstein, President of the Reno Aces, the triple-A affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks in Reno, Nevada, reached out to thank him for telling the story of minor league games. 

“Someone was reading the article, interacting with it, and being impacted by it,” he says. “That was a really cool professional experience for me.”  

Assumption helped Capurso realize that the passions he always had—for writing, and for sports—could turn into a dream career. 

“I’ve always loved sports,” he says. “It came naturally to me, and it’s something that I didn’t always know I wanted to do but was always meant to do. It doesn’t feel like work.”