While many choose not to pursue parents’ professions, senior works hard to follow mom’s footsteps

By Reuben Warshawsky
<[email protected]>

Senior Jordan Davis attends almost every home Indiana Pacers game. He is currently employed by the Pacers, and his job is to relay the game’s statistics to the broadcasters.

Davis’s mother, Deborah Hughes, also works for the Pacers in the media coverage department. Davis said he plans to enter his mother’s profession in the future.
“Going into the same field as your parent is less common than it was,” said Darrell Anthony Luzzo, president-elect of the National Career Development Association from Oklahoma.

Students now have an abundance of alternative career choices. According to the U.S. Labor Department, the number of occupations has increased 22 percent since 1980.

Hughes’s responsibility with the Pacers is to pass out the statistics of the current game to the statistics team so the television play-by-play announcers know the statistics and how the game is going.

Hughes said, “Jordan helps with getting all the papers together so that I do not have to spend time doing that, such as copying them and reading them to look for errors in the writing.”

Recently, a Junior Achievement poll of approximately 1,000 teens between ages 13 and 18 reported 82.5 percent of teenage girls and 76.1 percent of teenage boys are not interested in following the same career paths as their parents took.

Several decades ago, children were often expected to take over a family business and continue in the same path as their parents.

However, today teachers and school counselors primarily influence a teenager’s career choice, then the Internet, then professionals that teens encountered through job shadowing, and last parents. In addition, many parents discourage their children to follow in their profession because the parents understand that profession’s hardships and negative sides.

Davis said he enjoys his job because he gets the opportunity to work behind the scenes of a National Basketball Association (NBA) game. In addition, he said he is confident about acquiring a future job with the Pacers.

Davis said, “After I finish high school, I have a good chance of being hired full-time by the Pacers because I already have been trained in what to do.”
Hughes said, “Jordan has learned to speak with a great tone in his voice, and also he has learned the skills of working with people in the media field. This job can go many places for Jordan such as (a similar job) with the WNBA, NBA, NCAA or IHSAA.”

Davis is currently is paid only $4 for each game he works, but he said his job has other benefits. For example, he has made relationships with several former Pacers players.

Davis said, “I have been to Marquis Daniels’, Anthony Johnson’s and Jamaal Tinsley’s houses. We hang out and play video games together.”

Hughes said she was excited when the Pacers hired Davis because Hughes had worked for the Pacers for 16 years and Davis had always been interested with her job since he was young. In turn, he was hired to help out his mother.

The Pacers Sports and Entertainment employs approximately 180 full-time employees and anywhere from 400 to 800 part-time employees.

High school students are not allowed to work full-time with the Pacers, however many part-time job opportunities exist. Potential opportunities exist with guest relations, box office, stat crew, ball boy or Pacemates. Anyone interested can submit an application found on the Pacers’ Web site.

As for his job, though, Davis said, “I get ideal seats to every home game, and I get paid. Who would not want that?”