Montezuma graduate takes her game to the NCAA

MONTEZUMA — From the hardwood to the boardroom, 2021 Montezuma High School graduate Elise Boulton is climbing the ladder to good things.

Boulton, who will graduate in May from Simpson College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in business management and sports administration and a minor in Sports Communication, recently landed an internship with the National Collegiate Athletic Association in Indianapolis.

The internship runs from June 17, 2024 to May 30, 2025.

Boulton is the daughter of Buddy and Marie Boulton of Montezuma.

At the NCAA, Boulton will work in the Championships and Alliances Department as a championships operations intern, assisting in running championships.

“I’ll have at least three championships that I work really heavily on,” said Boulton. “I’ll primarily deal with tournament hosts, external vendors, rules committees, as well as doing rankings and selections and other operational details ahead of the tournaments.”

Boulton learned of the NCAA opportunity last summer while looking for jobs She applied for the program in September.

“I wasn’t sure how good of a chance I had since a lot of the current and past interns have master’s degrees or doctorate degrees and a lot of them attended Division 1 schools,” said Boulton.

Boulton received an email in early October requesting an interview via Zoom, which she did mid-month.

In late October, Boulton was invited to fly out to Indianapolis for a dinner, in-person interview and networking.

“The interviews went well, the networking was awesome, and my favorite part of being out there was meeting all of the other interviewees and traveling with them,” she said.

Boulton said the NCAA hires 34 interns each year across 12 different departments for its postgraduate internship program.

In addition to helping run the championships she will be assigned to, Boulton will have countless networking and leadership development opportunities.

“Each intern gets to go on their own professional development trip,” said Boulton. “I will get to pick a city and spend four days there networking with whatever sports agencies I want to.”

Boulton is no stranger to playing sports on the championship level, having competed in cross-country, track and basketball at state while a student at Montezuma. She helped lead the Bravettes basketball team to state four years in a row, from 2018 — 2021, finishing as semi-finalists twice.

Boulton ran cross-country at state all four years of high school, finishing 28th in Class 1A her senior year.

She also ran track at state her freshman and sophomore years, competing in the 3000-meter run both years and the 4-by-800 relay her second trip to Des Moines.

Bulton played two years of basketball for the Storm, stepping down her senior year to pursue other career opportunities. The highlight of her college basketball career was going to the NCAA Tournament her freshman year, she said.

As a student at Simpson, Boulton completed two internships with the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union and, this past fall, she spent time interning in operations at Norwalk High School.

During Boulton’s first summer internship in 2022 at the IGHSAU, Boulton created content for social media while assisting on-site at the spring and summer championships.

Her second year started in May 2023 and gave her the opportunity to take on more responsibility.

“Each sport at the IGHSAU has a primary and secondary administrator, and I was the secondary administrator on tennis this past spring,” Bouton said. “I was able to plan every detail, create each regional bracket for each class, and be the boots on the ground running the tournament.”

From the start of the process, Boulton learned how to draft a manual, create rules meetings for coaches and officials and determine regional host sites based on facilities and rankings.

“I was on-site at the championships to determine where signage should go, where awards would be staged, and how the event would flow overall,” said Boulton.

“I also worked on many contingency and safety plans such as booking indoor facilities, scheduling athletic trainers for the events, and communicating weather dates,” Boulton said.

“At the championship itself, I set up signage, coordinated the national anthem singer, ticket takers, program sales, merchandise sales and presented awards at the end of the event,” Boulton said.

“This was the most helpful experience in discovering my passion in operations.”

At Norwalk, Boulton experienced operations on a smaller level.

“While learning so much in both of these places (Norwalk and the IGHSAU), I realized that I like operations at a big level that plans big events every few months,” Boulton said. “This has shaped my future career path.”

Boulton has been involved in numerous clubs and organizations while at Simpson, serving as class president, mentoring incoming freshman and making lasting relationships.

“I’ve always felt supported here as I shifted from an athlete to a nonathlete, from job to job, and even as I’m about to leave,” Boulton said.

As for the future, Boulton’s career goals including working in operations and event management at a governing body, whether that’s a conference office such as that of the Big Ten or Big 12, the NCAA or the state level at the IGHSAU.