Blue Devil Alumni Spotlight: Scott Erdmann '02 (Las Vegas Raiders)

 

2002 Leominster High graduate Scott Erdmann has never been afraid of

change.  Erdmann is currently the Senior Director of Corporate Partnerships

Sales with the Las Vegas Raiders. But that journey to Vegas included a childhood

in the Pioneer Plastics City, an escape to the beach for college, and a long drive to

Texas.   

In 1993, Erdmann moved to Leominster from Arizona and attended Fall Brook.  Erdmann said the move presented challenges for a young kid, but his outgoing nature and love of sports allowed him to fit in before long.  

“Once you hit recess and you can play sports, you get picked up on the teams at school, I think that was the first thing I remember is making friends through sports,” Erdmann said.  

Erdmann then moved up the hill and attended Samoset where he played basketball and flag football before moving on to Leominster High in 1998.  Erdmann played football his first two years as a Blue Devil, but it was basketball, a sport in which Erdmann played all four years of high school, where he found his true calling under coaches Jim Beauregard and Steve Dubzinski.  

“I had the ability to play for Dubz and his stomping foot and we had a really good group of guys that played on that team,” Erdmann said.  

Erdmann said looking back at it, those days were great preparation for life after high school.  

“You look back on it and you try to pick up on things that may have been chess pieces that you moved back then or people that influenced you and obviously Dubz was one of those people that you don’t realize how much of impact that he as just in terms of caring for people,” Erdmann said.  

Erdmann said Dubzinski was the role model he and his teammates needed.  

“I am sure he has a couple of stories but there was one day when I didn’t have a physical and we were getting ready to go play and we went to go get a physical,” Erdmann said.  “He had to rush me there and get it done right before the start of the game.  He is just one of those guys who would help anybody out and he treats everyone with respect and he’s got compassion.  A lot of those things that you have no clue as 14, 15, 16-year-old, 17-year-old kid, of how those pieces will later affect you down the road.”  

Erdmann said that support network went beyond athletics, and it was very much needed.  

“I was immature,” Erdmann said.  “Where I am at now is completely different then my mindset of when I was in high school.  When I look back at it, we had a lot of really good teachers around us.  I look back at that, I was very naive at the time because you don’t realize those things.  Those are the critical things that you look for, the teachers that actually care about students and I wasn’t the golden child.”  

“I was a little bit of a class clown, joking around,” Erdmann added.  “I got my work done.  But I know I wasn’t the easiest student to have in class.  But you had teachers that cared, and people around you that cared, and that’s probably one of the most critical things that I look back on, just having good people around you.  People that have compassion.”

After high school, went south to Boca Raton, where he attended Lynn University and majored in Business Marketing.   

“I honestly just wanted to get out of cold weather,” Erdmann said.  “I went down there and visited the school and I was sold.  We were five minutes from the beach.  I don’t have to walk across campus in sweatpants and a sweatshirt so I was immediately sold.”  

Erdmann had some offers to play basketball up north, but enjoyed his first year at Lynn spending lots of time at the beach.  

“I wasn’t that serious about it at the time,” Erdmann said regarding basketball.  “I opted for the beach and enjoying the first year.”

An ankle injury prevented Erdmann from attempting to walk-on during his sophomore year, effectively ending his basketball career.   

After graduating from college, Erdmann took a job with the Florida Panthers as a Premium Seating Account Executive.  Erdmann got that job after attending a career fair. 

“I wore the guy out at the career fair to get me in front of the guy who was hiring,” Erdmann said.  

Erdmann said once offered the job, it was an easy decision.  

“I thought about it for less than 10 seconds and then said I was 100% in,” Erdmann said. “Selling hockey in South Florida, you have no idea what you are for, but I’m in.”  

After a stop at Florida Atlantic University, where Erdmann was the Senior Director of Premium Seating/Assistant Athletic Director, Erdmann got an opportunity to work in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys.  

“It’s a small, small community,” Erdmann said.  “Everybody knows everybody.  My old VP at the Panthers was good friends with the VP with the Cowboys, and I stayed in touch with our VP at the Panthers.  I took a couple steps back title-wise but I had a couple friends that went through the Cowboys organization and it was a first class organization.”

“I packed everything up and moved to Texas,” Erdmann said.  “I didn’t know anybody.”

After starting out in the familiar ticket sales area, Erdmann moved over to the sponsorship side with the Cowboys.    

“I had no experience with that but I think my work ethic and success that I had in ticket and suite sales but it showed I was able to connect with people and able to get meetings with people because that’s the hardest thing is getting time on someone’s calendar where they are going to spend it with you,” Erdmann said.  

Erdmann worked with the Cowboys from 2011 to this past March, when he and his wife Jenna moved to Henderson, NV when Erdmann accepted the position with the Raiders.  They are expecting their first child, a girl, soon.   

Erdmann said his advice for the others would include the same things that have helped him to get where he is today.  

“The things I lean on are, be kind to people, treat people with respect,” Erdmann said.  “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter what your background is.  If you are willing to outwork somebody, you will make it and you can get where you want to get.”

Erdmann also said who you surround yourself with is critical.  

“You’re going to be a kid, you’re going to make mistakes, but don’t do anything that’s going to be detrimental,” Erdmann said.  “Hang around the right people.  The six people you hang around with are going to people you start to become.  If you don’t like those people, that’s a situation you need to change and it’s a lot harder to when you are in high school.  Those are hard decisions to make then because you want to fit in.”