They were there to present their marketing ideas to 30 executives from the New York Giants organization. The presentation was a culmination of a study they did on ways to enhance the fan experience on game day and increase the appeal of the game to a younger generation.

The student team, known as the Giant Rams, featured Fordham College at Rose Hill sophomores Emma Kimble and Hayley Gregoire as well as freshman Demarice Rice-Williams, who is also a member of Fordham’s football team. The Gabelli School of Business was represented by sophomores Laura Anandappa and Matthew Reese and freshman Alexa Luther.

Pitching Nostalgia

The students pitched the idea of Throwback Thursday, which they connected to the elevation of past Giants’ triumphs. It features what is known as physical and digital “touchpoints,” said Kimble. That could be retro uniforms that fans can purchase or history-based trivia featured on the team’s social media accounts.

Kimble—an Austin, Texas, native—is currently one of the managers of Fordham’s football team and grew up watching Big 10 football with her father, who attended the University of Michigan. She recruited the other members of the team, which, rules stipulated, had to feature members from at least two different colleges.

“This may sound super cheesy, but it felt like the beginning of my future. This could be a big opportunity for my career,” said Kimble, an American studies and communications and media studies.

“I was scared because these are people I look up to, and I knew this was something I want to do, so there was that element of fear. But that translated into excitement when we pulled up it off.”

Before the students could share their thoughts on Throwback Thursday at the Legends Suite, they had to best four teams of their fellow students from Fordham’s four undergraduate colleges. After presenting their idea to a panel of Fordham administrators in early March, the winning team worked with Annette McLaughlin, director of career services, to tweak it based on the judges’ feedback.

At the stadium, they shared a PowerPoint presentation, fielded questions, and sat for a round-table-style Q&A with a select group of Giants executives.

‘Hard to Replicate’

Reese, a native of Weddington, North Carolina, who is majoring in information systems, played football in middle school and high school and is a fan of the Carolina Panthers and the New England Patriots. His team loyalty took a back seat to the opportunity to learn about the inner workings of a professional sports team though.

“When we won, it felt like, ‘Wow, this is legit.’ Going to MetLife Stadium and standing in front of a group of executives is going to be hard to replicate,” he said.

“A couple of the executives were like, ‘Hey, feel free to reach out; here’s my business card.’ I haven’t seen a business card in probably two years. It was just so nice to have that in-person interaction.”

Gregoire, a native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, majoring in communications and Spanish, said working on the project gave her a better appreciation of the power of nostalgia. Although she has typically taken the lead on similar projects in the past, working as a team under Kimble was also gratifying, she said.

“It was really satisfying to do this massive project over three months, put in a lot of hard work and effort, collaborate with the team, and then present this really awesome idea and see the judges love it,” she said.

Research, Presence, and Hard Work

McLaughlin said the presentation was especially impressive given the fact that the work was not affiliated with any class the students were taking.

“I’m always just so impressed with the Fordham students and how they’re able to do the research and then have the presence to stand up in front of a group of executives and articulate their findings,” she said.

Even the students who don’t ultimately present their ideas to the Giants are getting something valuable out of the experience she said.

“All students who participate in the competition have a real-life experience they can put on the resume; they’ve done the research, created the presentations, worked as a team,” she said.

A Partnership that Goes ‘Above and Beyond’

The initiative was part of a partnership between Fordham and the Giants that kicked off in 2019 and most recently featured a joint service project to help residents of the Bronx affected by the Jan. 9 fire on East 181st.

McLaughlin said the partnership is a university-wide initiative that has been more than she’d hoped for.

“[The Giants] have gone above and beyond at every point. They come to career fairs, they join us for panels, this year they had the VP of business intelligence talk to students about data collection,” she said.

Amanda DiPane, manager of partnership activation for the Giants, said the case studies have been invaluable because students bring with them an outsider’s perspective. Tapping into nostalgia was an astute move, she said, given the fact that the team will be celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2025.

“The students were very thoughtful and answered all questions with ease in a manner that showcased the extensive research they conducted over the past few months,” she said.

“We love tapping into our team’s rich history and it was promising to hear that even the younger generation appreciates that as well.”

Kimble will be even more involved in those conversations going forward, as she will begin an internship with the team at the end of the month.

“This was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had at Fordham,” she said.

Last month, the Long Island native, a 2010 graduate of Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business and a former defensive back for the Rams, was named assistant general manager of the New York Giants.

In his new role, Brown is helping to lead the Giants’ player personnel department and assisting in other areas, including college scouting.

A Giant Connection

He’s also extending a long history of connections between the Giants and his alma mater that began with the team’s longtime owner Wellington Mara, a 1937 Fordham graduate who led the Giants to six league championships, including two Super Bowls. Mara’s Fordham classmate Vince Lombardi started his Hall of Fame NFL coaching career as an assistant with the Giants, and Wellington’s son John, a 1979 Fordham Law graduate, is the team’s current president and co-owner.

For more than 25 years, another Fordham graduate, Bob Papa, GABELLI ’86, has been the radio voice of the Giants. Last month, he sat down with Brown on Giants Huddle: Front Office Edition and asked him about the historic connections between the two New York institutions.

“When you think of Fordham, you think of the Lombardi Center, and Vince Lombardi, and his ties to the Giants, and of course Wellington Mara. Do you get a sense of an added responsibility knowing the history of everything?” Papa asked.

Brown said that growing up hearing stories of these Hall of Famers gave him a sense of responsibility to carry their work forward.

“The word that comes to my mind is nostalgia, right? It’s all the stories you hear about, one, when you step on campus at Fordham, and then after being on campus, the responsibility that you have as a student-athlete while you’re there, to not just represent the name on the back of your jersey, if you’re playing, but also the logo on the front, which is the team,” he said.

That same sense of history and responsibility is embedded in the Giants organization, he said.

“It’s no different, it’s a carryover. And we all have, like I said, a responsibility to not just do our best, but exhaust all the resources and be progressive and forward thinking so we can get back to where we want to be,” he said of the Giants, who have won four Super Bowls in their history but have struggled in recent years.

To get back that level of success, Brown believes it’s important for people throughout the organization to share a similar vision.

“The term I like to use is synergy,” he said. “It’s having open-door communication, where a good idea can come from anywhere. And when we find a player, it’s not your guy, it’s not my guy, it’s our guy.”

Brown said when he’s scouting players, he often employs a cura personalis approach, considering the whole person and what they might bring to the organization.

“We need to know how the guy is from a 360-degree view—what he is in the building, what he is on the field, and what he is in the community, because all of that plays a factor into what our brand is and what our style of ball is,” Brown said.

Making a Career Pivot

Brown had initially wanted to play in the NFL, but after realizing that he would not get drafted by a pro team, he worked with his Fordham mentor, Christopher Gulotta, FCLC ’82, to set new goals.

“It was a sad realization for a truly gifted athlete who worked tirelessly since he was 10 years old on his fitness, technique, and understanding of the game,” Gulotta told Fordham Magazine in 2019. “Yet he pulled himself up by the bootstraps, accepted this new reality, improved his academics, attended law school, and found his way back to his true passion as a football scout for Boston College.”

In the same article, Brown said that Gulotta helped him figure out his next steps.

“Chris was like a sounding board for me,” he said. “He was like, ‘Hey, can I help you think through that?’ He wasn’t pushing. That’s where I think the foundation for a long-term relationship was built for us.”

Since then, the two have become very close.

“I don’t even consider him a mentor anymore,” Brown said. “I consider him a family friend who I lean on heavily for advice.”

In 2019, Fordham and the Giants established a partnership that provides academic programming and internships for students and marketing opportunities for the University. They also have taken part in joint community engagement efforts, including helping distribute resources, school supplies, and other items to the victims of a deadly Bronx fire in January 2022.

Hunter and her family were impacted by the devastating Bronx fire that ravaged an East 181st Street apartment building on Jan. 9, killing 17 residents and injuring many others.

“For a long time we were feeling ignored, so this is a ray of sunshine, and we appreciate y’all a lot,” she said.

Four members of the New York Giants—Shaun O’Hara, Plaxico Burress, Kerry Wynn, and David Tyree—joined members of the Fordham community in distributing backpacks filled with toys, education supplies, tablets with internet access, and other items for families who had been impacted by the fire. The event was geared particularly toward the residents who were not property owners in the building and therefore hadn’t benefitted from other events meant to help the victims, according to Julie Gafney, executive director of Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning.

Gafney said that the goal of the center is to help build a bridge between Fordham and its neighboring communities and create ways to work together—something that is extremely necessary in a time of crisis.

“This responsibility is particularly clear to us when any of our neighbors encounters or faces a tragic or traumatic event, like our neighbors over on 181st Street in Tremont, who suffered the effects of the devastating fire last month,” she said.

A ‘Giant’ Effort

Since 2019, Fordham and the New York Giants have been engaged in a partnership that provides academic programming, internships, marketing opportunities, and joint community service efforts that support both Fordham students and the neighboring communities.

O’Hara said that he and the other Giants were glad to give back to their New York community and make sure the fire victims knew there were people looking our for them.

“I think we all feel like it was a privilege to play in the NFL and certainly to play for the New York Giants, and one of those privileges that I think you appreciate is the community,” he said. “Today is just a great opportunity to give back to our surrounding communities and let them know that we care about them. And anytime you see community members in need—we’re going to go assist them. We want them to know that they’re not in this alone.”

Kweesam Wood, who lived in the building that caught fire, said that he was grateful for the participating organizations and the Giants players for being there.

“A lot of us think that nobody cared about us, so to see something like this—to see people come out, for the New York Giants to come out, it was very good to see,” he said.

Students Glad for Chance to Help

Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning gathered backpack items for students who were affected by the fire in grades kindergarten through 12th grade. Fordham students volunteered to help stuff the bags at Rose Hill and distribute them at Monroe College–which has served as a temporary emergency response center for families impacted by the fire.

“When this happens, it’s not their fault and they lose so much,” said Kamila Carpio, a junior at Fordham College at Lincoln Center. “We just want to give back whatever we can for the people who can’t afford [these items]. It’s nice doing things like this.”

John Navarra, a first-year student at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said that when he saw an email about CCEL needing volunteers, he knew he wanted to help his community.

“I’m from the area and I know what happened with the fire so I thought it’d be a good opportunity,” he said.

Dael Ki, a first-year student from Fordham College at Lincoln Center, said that she was glad the students and the University as a whole could give back.

“If something like this happened to me or anyone that I knew—I would hope that the community would do the same for us,” Ki said. “I think it’s important as a school in general to give back to the overall community.”

For transfer student Kyle Rohrs, the event was an opportunity to fully immerse himself in his new Bronx home.

“It’s amazing to help out in the community that I recently moved into along with the school that I recently transferred to,” he said. “I think it’s extremely important to be there to help people who unfortunately have had to go through something as tragic as what happened here.”

Support from an Alumna

Joy Tolliver, FCRH ’04, and the vice president of governmental affairs for Monroe College, said she felt a responsibility to help these grieving families.

“As an attorney, as a higher education professional, I’m very passionate about helping the communities that are in need—I’m very passionate about making sure that underrepresented populations have access to the resources that they need to be successful,” said Tolliver, who helped coordinate the effort. “In this situation we have families who are in the midst of grief and the very least that we can do is provide them with materials and supplies.”

Tolliver said that being able to work with both Fordham and her current job was the “realization of a dream”—one that she hopes she’ll get to realize again.

“I look forward to many future partnerships with my alma mater and bridging my current work with all the great work that’s happening at Fordham,” she said.

Fordham and the New York Giants, two institutions with deep connections to New York football and each other, will team up on an array of initiatives after signing a formal partnership this summer. Benefits will include academic offerings for students and exposure for the University.

“Our identity has been tied to the gridiron since the 1920s, with Fordham’s ‘Seven Blocks of Granite’ dominating the sport in the 1930s, and John Mara is of course a distinguished Fordham Law alumnus,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham.

“We are therefore pleased to deepen our family connection to the Giants and excited to enter a partnership with the team that will be mutually beneficial.”

The partnership has the potential to result in new academic programs and new initiatives in the areas of community service, student enrollment, fundraising, alumni relations, branding, and special events.

“As a graduate of Fordham Law, I was fortunate to experience firsthand the wonderful educational opportunities that Fordham has to offer,” said John Mara, LAW ’79, president and co-owner of the New York Giants.

“This partnership will create new academic programs, student internships, and community service initiatives that will build upon and strengthen those experiences for Fordham students and our community.”

Academic Programming and Marketing

Jonathan Crystal, Ph.D., vice provost for Fordham, said there are many benefits to the new partnership.

“This initiative furthers the university’s strategy of deepening partnerships with leading New York City institutions, using them as a springboard to develop new academic programs and create unique opportunities for our students,” he said.

“It draws on our strengths across a number of different disciplines, from business and marketing to communications and media studies. It also takes Fordham’s visibility to the next level.”

The University and its programs and schools will be featured on in-stadium advertising during Giants games, as well as radio, digital, and social promotion.

Anthony R. Davidson, Ph.D., dean of Fordham’s School of Professional and Continuing Studies, said an intriguing aspect of the partnership is the way he sees Fordham leveraging it to create new academic programming in sports business at the school—potentially at the graduate level. Davidson said he’s eager to collaborate with colleagues in the department of communications and media studies, which currently offers a minor in sports journalism, and the Gabelli School of Business, which offers a concentration in sports business.

“I think this allows for us to develop our offerings in sports, an area of interest for many students,” he said, noting that the opportunities in the field extend far beyond working for individual teams or leagues.

Davidson said also he expects that members of the Giants organization will likewise take advantage of continuing education opportunities that Fordham offers.

Internships and Class Projects

This semester, three students will be interning with the team. Annette McLaughlin, director of Fordham’s Office of Career Services, said the internships—in departments such as corporate partnerships, premium services, and media production—are well aligned with the academic interests of Fordham students.

“Career success depends on two things: connections and experience, which includes the classroom, internships, volunteer work, and campus leadership roles. Fordham does an amazing job on the academic side with projects and presentations. We prepare the students by helping them connect their experiences inside and outside the classroom for future employment,” she said.

“Our role is to facilitate and create opportunities that connect students to employers and introduce them to a variety of career options. The Giants internships really match well with the knowledge, skills, and interests of our students and will no doubt help them as they begin their next chapter.”

Students will also be able to work with the Giants in the classroom through a class project. The project, which will be treated like a case study, will bring together an interdisciplinary group of students to work on a business challenge. Students will have the opportunity to make a presentation to the Giants’ management team. The agreement will also bring Giants executives into the classroom for guest lectures.

Jeffrey L. Gray, senior vice president for student affairs at Fordham, called the agreement “a team effort.”

“It involved genuine collaboration by many individuals and units across the University and in the Giants organization,” he said.

“The process is a model for how to get complex projects across the goal line, and I am grateful for the time and effort put in by everyone in both organizations.”

Partnering on Community Service

Beyond the classroom and the field, the two organizations will pursue community service projects together. The Giants will support Fordham students as they assist in community service projects such as clothing drives for the homeless, food delivery to those in need on holidays, and visits to children in hospitals.

A Long History Together

Fordham and the Giants have shared many connections through the years. Wellington Mara, the son of the team’s founder, Tim Mara, graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 1937. His classmate, Fordham football legend Vince Lombardi, got his start in the NFL as an assistant coach with the team. Several executives in the Giants organization are Fordham graduates. And Bob Papa, the radio voice of the Giants, who has broadcast the team’s games since 1995, is a 1986 graduate of Fordham’s Gabelli School of Business.

On Jan. 18, the 42-year-old Fordham Law grad was voted NFL Executive of the Year by the Pro Football Writers Association.

Roseman has avoided the spotlight since then, calling the award a credit to the entire Eagles organization. But in recent weeks, journalists and fans alike have been singing his praises, referring to him as a “genius” and a “magician,” and crediting him for a series of shrewd, often bold roster moves that have paid off in a big way this year.

The Eagles overcame back-to-back losing seasons and some potentially devastating player injuries to soar to a 13-3 regular-season record and advance to the Super Bowl, thanks in large part to the depth of young and veteran talent Roseman brought together.

“Every one of his free-agent or traded-for acquisitions were successes,” Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jeff McLane wrote on Jan. 21, after the Eagles beat the Minnesota Vikings, 38-7, to win the NFC championship.

Now the resilient Eagles are set to face the New England Patriots, winners of two of the past three Super Bowls. Philly will be underdogs on Feb. 4, just as they were in their first two playoff games this year. But that’s a role the team and its fans seem to relish. And it’s one that’s long been familiar to Roseman, who overcame long odds just to land a job in the NFL.

Here are five things to know about Howie Roseman before the big game:

1. He’s living his childhood dream.

Roseman was born in Brooklyn but grew up in suburban New Jersey, where he rooted for the New York Jets and dreamed of a career in an NFL team’s front office. He once said that when he was 9 or 10 years old, “people would ask what I was going to do. I’d say, I’m going to be general manager of a National Football League team. They used to laugh.”

2. His persistence is legendary.

In a 2014 interview with Bleacher Report, Roseman estimated that between his senior year of high school and his third year of law school, he wrote more than 1,000 letters to NFL teams (one letter to each team, several times a year) in hopes of landing a job.

He received rejection letters that could be “stacked as high as the ceiling in any room in your house,” he said, and he admitted that he “really didn’t have a backup plan, which, looking back on it really wasn’t so smart.”

3. A Fordham Law degree helped him get his foot in the door.

Roseman received a glimmer of hope during his senior year at the University of Florida. Mike Tannenbaum, who worked in the New York Jets player personnel department at the time, agreed to give Roseman some advice by phone. No team would hire him as a scout, Tannenbaum reportedly said, because Roseman had no football experience. But if he were to earn a law degree, he might be able to sell himself as a salary-cap expert.

So Roseman enrolled at Fordham Law School. Shortly after earning a J.D. in May 2000, he landed his first NFL position: an unpaid summer internship with the Eagles. And he hasn’t forgotten his alma mater. In spring 2011, he returned to Fordham to deliver the keynote address at the annual Fordham Sports Law Symposium.

4. He rose from intern to general manager in just 10 years.

Roseman initially shared a desk with an administrative assistant in the Eagles’ front office, but before long, he was hired full time as staff counsel and began a rapid, steady climb through the corporate ranks—to director of football administration in 2003, vice president of player personnel in 2008, and general manager in 2010. By then, he was 34 years old, the youngest GM in the league at the time. He’s been in his current position as head of football operations since 2015.

5. He’s the latest exemplar of Fordham’s Super Bowl connections.

Fordham’s ties to the big game date back to the very first one. On Jan. 15, 1967, Fordham grad Vince Lombardi, FCRH ’37, led the Green Bay Packers to victory in what later became known as Super Bowl I. He repeated the feat the following year. After his untimely death in September 1970, the NFL named its championship trophy in his honor.

One of Lombardi’s Fordham classmates, Wellington Mara, FCRH ’37, also had a share in two Super Bowl victories. As longtime co-owner of the New York Giants, he steered the team to the top in 1987 and 1991.

More recently, Wellington’s son John Mara—a 1979 Fordham Law grad and the Giants’ current president, CEO, and co-owner—has hoisted the Lombardi Trophy twice, in 2008 and 2012. In both games, the odds were against his team, and in both games, the Giants defeated the New England Patriots.

No doubt Roseman will be looking to extend that Fordham underdog tradition on Super Bowl Sunday.

Update (Feb. 5): The Eagles defeated the Patriots, 41-33, to win the Super Bowl 52. After the game, Roseman told NBC Sports Philadelphia, “It’s hard to win a world championship. Everything has to go right. And not everything went right for us. … [But] we’re world champions forever. This group is a special group.”