Jordan Lynn graduated from the School of Kinesiology with a Sport Management degree and a minor in communications in 2014. 

“I was an athlete in high school. I loved sports and I wanted to stay in the industry,” Lynn said. “I think that’s how a lot of people end up in the sport management field. Once I started taking classes I really developed an appreciation for the business side of sport, all the things you can do like marketing, promotion, sales, etc.” 

Lynn participated in several internships as an undergraduate student as a part of the Sport Management Program requirements. Heading into his senior year, he still needed a few more internship credits. 

“I took an internship with the St. Paul Saints in their marketing department the winter of my senior year,” Lynn said. “When I graduated they hired me on full time and I’m still there now.” 

Lynn said it’s been a rewarding experience to be able to shape his career over time with the same organization. He started as an intern in 2013, and is now the Director of Digital Media and Video Production. The experience matches the advice he would offer to current students.

“Look for internship experiences early and often,” Lynn said. “And don’t limit yourself when you’re looking. It’s easy to think, ‘Well, I want to work in the NBA, or NFL,’ and then discount smaller or different organizations. Every opportunity is going to give you experience and make you more marketable when you move on. Smaller teams or organizations often aren’t as competitive to apply to, and you’re still gaining valuable experience in the sport world.” 

Lynn himself is primarily a basketball fan. His motivation for attending the career fair that landed him his Saints internship was to network with the Timberwolves. 

“My roommate convinced me to talk to the Saints as we were leaving,” Lynn said. “And I’m so glad I did. This job has been amazingly fun and rewarding.” 

Lynn’s second piece of advice to students is to find your niche and value within the industry. Along with his sport management courses, he decided to take a couple of film classes because video was a personal interest of his. 

“I honestly hadn’t considered video or film as a viable career path,” Lynn said. “I was just always interested in it. I was the kid who stole my mom’s camcorder growing up to film all sorts of stuff.” 

Those film classes inspired Lynn’s minor in communications. Which, he said, “is a big reason why I’m doing what I do now.”

In addition to helping Lynn land his role with the Saints, his work in video led him to start JLynn Productions, a video production company. Through his independent video work, Lynn created the film Black Lives Matter in response to George Floyd’s murder at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department and the resounding protests that occurred afterwards.

“Like so many other people, I was horrified by Floyd’s death,” Lynn said. “It was incredible to see the community band together in support of Floyd and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement after his death. But I still saw a lot of people on social media who seemed to not understand what the BLM movement was, or who were questioning its value.” 

“I’m not the most outspoken person. But I wanted to figure out how I could contribute to getting the BLM message across and make things clearer for people who didn’t understand. I wanted to find a way to use my skills to help contribute the best way I knew how.”

And so Lynn created Black Lives Matter, a film with the purpose of explaining what Black Lives Matter means, told from the perspective of the Twin Cities community and beyond. 

“That’s the question that starts off the video,” Lynn said. “I wanted to hear directly from people’s mouths. If I could have people explain what it means to them, what they want out of the movement, how the negativity around the movement has impacted them, and how people can contribute that would be the best way to explain to people what Black Lives Matter means.” 

Lynn posted the video on his social media this summer and garnered support from family and friends for his work. When he received a prompt from the Oregon Short Film Festival to submit work, he looked back at what he’d created in 2020. The Black Lives Matter documentary stood out. 

“When I originally made this I had no intentions of submitting it to a film festival,” Lynn said. “The purpose was an explanation. That’s all I wanted to get out of it.” 

“I get emails from various film festivals pretty regularly. Something clicked, and I decided to take a shot and see if the Black Lives Matter film was good enough to get selected.” 

Not only was the film good enough to get selected to be shown in the Oregon Short Film Festival Winter 2021, but it has also been nominated as a Best Documentary Film Award Finalist. 

The Oregon Short Film Festival is presented by the Film Festival Circuit and will take place live via a drive-up movie theater in Oregon Thursday, February 25 through Sunday, February 28. For Twin Cities-area readers, you can view the film on Lynn’s YouTube channel. 

Thanks for your inspiring work, Jordan. The School of Kinesiology is very proud to call you an alumni of our program.