When supervisors stepped away mid-event at the premier global meeting for sports rights holders, hosts destinations and suppliers in Lausanne, Switzerland, this summer, most volunteers waited. Amanda Castro-Rivera didn’t. She quickly assigned everyone a position and made sure no station went unmanned.
“We’re not sitting ducks,” she recalled thinking. “I gave everybody a role.”
It’s no surprise Castro-Rivera is a leader. When you speak with her, she has a calmness balanced with an air of authority that puts you at ease. What is surprising is she is only a second-year student at the University of Dayton.
A Legacy Brought to Life
Castro-Rivera grew up in Puerto Rico, initially resistant to attending UD, her mother’s alma mater. After a campus visit, she changed her mind.
“I visited and fell in love, with my mom saying, ‘I told you so,’” she said. Now majoring in sport management with a minor in business administration, she credits her family’s deep roots in sports alongside Puerto Rico’s sports culture with pointing her toward her career path.
“I grew up in the sports world,” she said. “It just motivated me to give back and ask, ‘What else can I learn from this?’ ‘How can I expand?’”
The Connection That Opened Doors
Last spring, Castro-Rivera served as a teaching assistant for professor Shaun Hamilton in his facilities and operations course. When she shared her interest in international sports, Hamilton told her about the Hosts & Federation Summit, an annual event hosted by Major Events International in Lausanne.
“He said, ‘I go every year to this summit,’” she recalled. “‘You can just apply; I'll talk to the person in charge of volunteers.’”
The trip was not cheap. Castro-Rivera reached out to the University for support, and UD stepped in to help cover her hotel costs. Even with the support, Castro-Rivera was understandably apprehensive.
“I was a bit nervous, because this is a big trip,” she said. “This is college hands-on. This needs to go well, hopefully. The dream was to get an internship with all these people [at the conference].”
Three Days at the Olympic Museum
During the three-day summit at the International Olympic Committee Museum in Lausanne, Castro-Rivera and roughly 15 volunteers guided attendees, managed logistics and coordinated one-on-one meetings and speaker sessions. Most volunteers were from universities across Europe.
“We started setting up around 7:30 in the morning,” she said. “We had to guide people to where they needed to go, make sure everything ran correctly and divide the public from our sponsors and invitees.”
On day two, a media chief with Major Events International pulled her aside. She noticed Castro-Rivera stepped up when supervisors were away.
“She said she saw herself in me,” Castro-Rivera recalled. “Those words meant thousands. Compared to the 15 volunteers and the MEI staff, I stood out. Her words were high praise coming from somebody who has been working in this industry.”
She is still in touch with contacts from the summit and dreams of one day working in Europe, perhaps with MEI or the International Olympic Committee.
Ongoing Experiential Learning
Switzerland is just one of the ways Castro-Rivera is taking advantage of her time at UD. This year, she works as a paid equipment manager with UD Athletics, handling setup, inventory and event operations for football and basketball. She also is completing her practicum, a required hands-on experience in the sport management program, working directly with Hamilton and the International Jump Rope Union.
Hamilton is no ordinary professor. A former national jump rope champion, he runs the Dayton Firecrackers and serves as CEO of IJRU, organizing international competitions — most recently in Japan, with Norway on the horizon for 2029. Castro-Rivera’s ability to speak Spanish makes her an asset as the organization eyes Latin America next.
“My professor really trusts me in that aspect,” she said. “I know Latin countries, so we are really going to help each other.”
She is pitching events and may serve as a Spanish translator for a potential 2027 competition in Panama or Colombia.
Somebody Will Be Advocating for You
After feeling homesick her first semester, Castro-Rivera found her footing through the rowing team, her sport management classmates and UD’s Puerto Rican student community. More than any program, she points to something simpler as UD’s greatest strength. 
“No matter what, there is somebody to help,” she said. “It could be IT, it could be dining, it could be academics and somebody will be advocating for you. You are not going to be alone.”
That spirit, from a professor who opened a door to Switzerland to donors who helped her mother enroll decades ago, is what Castro-Rivera carries forward.
“Visualize where you want to go,” she said. “I visualized what I wanted to be, did not have a name for it, and when I got to UD, I got a name for it.”