Rowan University welcomed Todd Schmidt, senior producer at NFL Films, on Oct. 6 to speak with students at Pizza With the Pros in King Auditorium.

Opening the conversation, Neil Hartman, senior director of the Center for Sports Communication and Social Impact, highlighted some of Schmidt’s achievements, including five national Emmy awards.

Before beginning his career in production, Schmidt graduated from Temple University, where he got the opportunity to cover Division I sports, including Paul Palmer when he was the runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. Following graduation, he returned to his hometown of Asbury Park, where he covered high school sports for the local newspaper.

His tenure with the newspaper came to an end when he began working in New York City, working for an advertising agency in marketing communications. After seven years, however, Schmidt moved on from that position, citing the long commute and missing time with his family.

“I loved it. I loved learning about marketing communications … and then I got tired of it,” Schmidt said. “I was commuting to New York and back, and I wasn’t seeing my family very often.”

After leaving the advertisement industry, Schmidt went back to the drawing board and took the time to think back on the career he had always wanted: working as a writer for NFL Films. From there, he spent three weeks researching the company so he was prepared to compete with other applicants.

“How I positioned myself against Derek from Syracuse, who went to a better school and had better accolades,” Schmidt said. “I decided to position myself as a producer using every ounce of experience I had so far.”

One lesson that he taught students was to put themselves out there. Schmidt’s career at NFL Films started with a 10-page letter to Steve Sable, who was the president of the company at the time. In the letter, he mentioned his experience and passion for the sport, which ultimately caught the attention of Sable. From there, Schmidt secured his dream job, now entering his 29th season at NFL Films.

“All of us have challenges when it comes to being compared with someone else, especially with where you want to get in this business,” Schmidt said. “I was lucky enough to have a nice foundation of not only writing for sports, but also working outside of sports.”

When speaking about the beginning of his career, Schmidt stressed to students how important it is to get experience outside of sports, even if they know that working in the industry is their end goal. He also offered students advice to make themselves stand out when they are applying for jobs.

Schmidt says when he is looking through applications from students applying for NFL Films internships, he searches for things that make each applicant shine differently from another.

“I always look for two things: can this person think, and can this person benefit from this, and exist and do well in this environment,” Schmidt said. 

Schmidt credits those attributes as the most important things, especially with the length of the season. Along with that, he encouraged students to be themselves and speak their truth during the interview process, instead of pretending to be the “perfect applicant.”

Before ending his conversation with students, Schmidt left students with one last piece of advice on how to look impressive when you may not have a lot of experience in the field you want to go into.

“Look inward to what’s excellent,” Schmidt said. “What track record of consistent excellence do you possess that you could leverage into this opportunity?”