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Student of The Game—What it Means and How This Teammate Exemplifies it

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By Melissa Wickes
September 6, 2022
3 min

At LeagueApps, the strive to improve never fades away no matter how long you’ve worked here. That’s why Student of the Game is one of the nine values we uphold. 

So what does Student of the Game mean? To us, it’s our commitment to constantly hone our abilities and improve our craft. We want to be the best at getting better every day. How does someone commit themselves to getting better every day at work? Easy: Ask Kara Lawson. 

Kara is a Senior Product Marketing Manager at LeagueApps who is always hoping to learn more, try new things, and improve her craft. Not only that, she’s also always helping others learn more about LeagueApps’ too. 

LeagueApps values shoutouts, so once a year at our winter company offsite, we hold the SPORTSDOG Awards where certain members of the team are recognized for the way they uphold one of LeagueApps’ values. To recap, the values are Sportsmanship, Passion, Openness, Results, Team, Student of the Game, Difference-maker, Own-Your-Role, and Grit. To no one’s surprise, Kara won this year’s Student of the Game award. If you’re interested in working at LeagueApps, you’ll want to learn more about Kara.

Student of the Game SPORTSDOG Award Winner: Kara Lawson

It’s important to be a Student of the Game on any team at LeagueApps, but it’s especially important on the Product Team because things are constantly changing. We’re always improving our product to meet the needs of youth sports leaders, coaches, and parents of players. Kara never hesitates to stay on top of those changes and takes on the daunting responsibility of ensuring that everyone else—both internally and externally—understands the meaning of the changes. 

From my personal experience, when I’m working on a project with Kara, she takes the responsibility of accurately and clearly explaining the task with context very seriously. She’ll never ask you to be a part of something before ensuring she has all of the necessary information and details about it down pat. I consider her a LeagueApps encyclopedia, whether it’s about the product, the team structure, or the company as a whole. Working with Kara makes me strive to be a Student of the Game myself. But don’t just take my word for it. Here’s what some of Kara’s other colleagues had to say about her.

“She is constantly raising her hand and making every team she is part of stronger,” says Jared Cooper.

“Kara is the definition of Student of the Game—she makes sure she is fully knowledgeable on a subject before he tackles a project and then she is so generous in how she shares that knowledge with her teammates,” says Ashlyn Heller. 

“Kara has contributed so much in the last year. She has learned the product and knows our features better than most that have been here much longer,” says Rebecca Gross.

“Kara is someone on our team who is a Student of the Game in so many ways. One, she knows our product, she knows our company, she knows every department. She has taken the time to be thoughtful and studious and really get up to speed on everything we do at LeagueApps. How we provide value to our partners and how things work internally. But I think a more hidden part of Student of the Game that Kara also does a really great job exemplifying is someone who is very willing and helpful in allowing our organization to learn,” says Brian Litvack.

Why Our Team Values Matter

Having annual SPORTSDOG Awards and shoutouts every Thursday that highlight a team value allows us to hold ourselves accountable as members of the LeagueApps team and truly live our company values each and every day we go to work. Stay tuned for next month’s SPORTSDOG Award spotlight: the winner of Difference-maker.

Do you think you embody the value of Student of the Game as well as Kara does? Or maybe she’s just someone you really want to work with? Be sure to take a look at our open positions to find your fit at LeagueApps.