Students in the Sporting Event Management class, of the sports management program, hosted a 5K Fund Run on Saturday, Oct. 22, at the intramural soccer fields.

The entire event was organized and run by students in the class, with some students organizing how the event will run, and others working to market the event to both local businesses for sponsorships as well as students to participate in the event.

“It’s honestly very rewarding and a lot of fun,” co-director of the event Dan Plunkett said. “We learned a lot just getting out there, and it’s a lot of hands-on experience doing something and seeing it develop right in front of your eyes.”

Since the entire event was run by sports management students, it took a complete effort from the class to make the event run smoothly.

“It’s been a lot of fun working with my fellow students organizing this event,” the other co-director of the 5K, Andrew Berg, said. “Everyone was so motivated to get this event up and running because this is what we do in the sports management program, we all really love sports and athletics, so being able to work a 5K and be able to put it on ourselves is a lot of fun, and we did really well with it.”

Berg said organizing the event gave students the opportunity to work with businesses around Cape Girardeau and Southeast’s recreational services department while also having the freedom to make the event their own.

“One of the struggles was just knowing who to talk to,” Berg said. “We were really given a blank slate and told ‘Hey, the main goal for this class is to put on a 5K and just trying to figure out what’s step No. 1 and step No.2, I think we did a really good job with that.”

Among the other challenges of organizing the event, communication and scheduling with each other can be a problem.

“Especially with college kids, one of the struggles is everyone’s schedule, everyone’s usually taking anywhere from 12 to 18 credit hours so getting time out of everyone’s schedule leaves a lot of late nights,” Berg said.

While scheduling can be an issue, Berg said working with many students helps bring out more creativity.

“Some of the more fun things was just coming up with ideas,” Berg said. “Early on we had a brainstorming session where everyone was just saying what they thought we should do, different ideas bouncing around, that was a lot of fun too, hearing all of the different ideas.”

This sports management class hosts an event every semester — a 5K in the fall and a golf tournament in the spring.