University of Minnesota Athletics
Gopher Spotlight: Kristen Dockery
11/19/2010 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
Note: This is a feature story on senior forward Kristen Dockery that ran in Wednesday's Minnesota Basketball Game Program. Dockery, a native of Granger, Ind., who had career-highs for points (eight), rebounds (nine, tie), and minutes played (30) during Wednesday night's 73-63 win versus Pittsburgh, talks about her summer internship with the Minnesota Lynx and this season's expectations for the Gophers.
By Justine Buerkle, Athletic Communications student assistant
College athletes are never far away from their sports, even in the offseason. This was especially true for Minnesota senior forward and tri-captain Kristen Dockery this past summer. In addition to working out and preparing for the upcoming basketball season, Dockery completed an internship with the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx.
As a sport management major, Dockery needed to complete a practicum as part of her degree requirement. Along with fulfilling academic requirements, this internship with also gave Dockery some memorable experiences.
Although she was working at Target Center, at times it may have felt more like Williams Arena. Working with Dockery were Golden Gopher team managers Emily Oberlander and Jess Lemanski, and Gopher director of operations Shanna Rich, a team office assistant at the time.
The Lynx's manager of basketball operations and video, for whom Dockery worked, is Katie Alsdurf, who played in the backcourt for the Gophers during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons after transferring from Marquette. And before the season, the Lynx acquired former Minnesota star guard Lindsay Whalen.
"[Being around Whalen] was awesome," Dockery said. "She's a great player. She's a great person. She's really easy to get along with, and just really passionate about what she's doing. It was just really cool to get to know her a little bit."
Dockery worked with the Lynx from late April to early September. Her duties as an intern were varied. She assisted Alsdurf in the office and helped the team in the arena, doing everything from booking flights to handing out towels. On game days, she would do tasks like helping set up shootaround, rebounding for players, setting up coolers, mopping the floor, and doing laundry, often staying late after games. More than the individual tasks she did, Dockery enjoyed the people with whom she worked.
"My favorite part would just be interacting with the team and the coaches, and just kind of building relationships," she said. "I guess you could call it networking, too. Obviously that's something you want to try to do with internships."
Dockery said she can picture herself doing work similar to what she saw and experienced over the summer. She has been around basketball her whole life, but didn't know for sure that she wanted a career in sports until she started to explore the sport management major at the U. Working with the Lynx solidified the desire to work in sports.
"I really enjoyed the operations side of things, with what Katie does," Dockery said. "Also coaching, as well. I've already been thinking about that direction anyways, and I think [the internship] kind of just reaffirmed that even more."
In addition to building experience for a career in athletics, Dockery also learned some lessons she can apply during her final season as a college basketball player. Plagued by injuries throughout her career, Dockery is healthy now and hopes to get on the court more often and use what she learned.
"I think I learned some moves in the post," she said. "I worked with Jim Peterson, the post coach, a lot with drills, so I tried to listen to him. Even just learning stuff about coaching-how he interacts with players or how he teaches different skills. He was really big on footwork. I really tried to soak in some of that. So hopefully I'm able to apply that to some of my game."
Despite the Gophers' 13-17 finish last season, Dockery believes this year's squad has a chance to go far.
"We're all extremely positive and motivated," she said. "Everyone's been working so hard, so I'd say a Big Ten championship is the goal for our team. A goal is to make everything fun. Having a good attitude is going to be huge again, and that's going to make it fun. That's just going to be a constant goal, because it's not always easy once you start facing adversity during the year."
After this season, Dockery will be done playing college basketball, but she hopes to remain involved in athletics in some capacity, whatever and wherever that may be.
"I'm going to see where it takes me," Dockery said. "I think I'm probably going to dive into some different stuff. I'm not certain I want to coach, and I'm not certain I want to be in operations. I think I'm just going to be open-minded and see what I truly love, and I think that will take time. It'll come with more experience."
