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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (June 10, 2015)
2B COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL June 10, 2015 T HE B USINESS Continued from 1B and students on this track sell signage packages, update the video board in the commons and, starting this past year, manage the athletics website, cglions.org. The new website has signifi cantly more function- ality than the previous one, and the students have spent this year getting a hang of the basics. Flo- rez said that going forward the class will look to further utilize the website’s capabilities and thus add more value to sponsor- ship packages. “We already generate sig- OF S PORTS nifi cant gross impressions for our sponsors through the ads and signs that people see when they come to our games, tour- naments and graduations. But there is such a demand to have an online presence, and we want to give people more reasons to visit our website,” he said. The class is unlike any other at Cottage Grove. It’s complete- ly project based; students are re- quired to interact professionally with local business owners, and they regularly encounter real- world problems, such as a non- functioning soda machine or a misplaced sponsorship check. “There’s never a dull moment,” Florez said. “We’re constantly dealing with the unexpected. Recently a sign fell down, com- pletely unbeknownst to us, but when the business owner called, we still had to massage that sit- uation. Sometimes in business you have to take a fall to make people happy.” There are quite a few obsta- cles to maintaining a high-per- forming class that delivers on the promises made to sponsors. Some students who have the skills to contribute can’t fi nd room in their schedules for Ad- vanced Business Concepts, and others may only be able to take it for a year. With so many mov- ing parts, things can slip through the cracks. “Sponsors expect results, but we try to communicate that this is a learning setting,” said Florez. “Thankfully, we have a core group of kids who have de- veloped those problem-solving skills, and who come back for multiple years.” Graduated senior Taylor Say- les was involved with the pro- gram since her freshman year. She started out in computer technology before moving into Sports Marketing as a sopho- more. When she fi rst took on the new role, Sayles recalls dread- ing making phone calls to local business owners. “I was really shy when I fi rst started school, and this class helped me become comfortable with phone calls and face-to- face meetings,” she said. As a junior, Sayles moved into a leadership role and was given off-campus privileges. The ex- perience taught her a lot about how to build a network. “You can’t run a business from your headquarters; you have to go out and make con- nections. You sell more by go- ing in and shaking people's hand than trying to sell them over the phone,” she said. While Sayles has no future plans to run a business — she intends to study education at Southern Oregon University — she said that the lessons she’s learned aren’t exclusive to the business world. “It’s not our goal to make these students into business owners,” said Florez, who once thought he’d like to open a sporting goods store. “It’s about giving them an opportunity to test their ideas and have some experiences together.” P RESLEY Continued from 1B was selected to play in the third annual Futures Games, a show- case event for college and profes- sional scouts which will be held in Keizer on July 3. Legion Baseball is also underway, and later this month he will try out for Base- ball Northwest, a regional all-star team that travels to compete at scouted tournaments throughout the West. All the while he’ll be training with his teammates for the upcoming football season. Should he make the Baseball Northwest team, Presley’s fall fi gures to be even busier, as he would need to go directly from the Friday night lights of Herald White Stadium to tournaments in neighboring states. But the sac- rifi ces could end up being well worth it. It’s his dream to play collegiately. “It takes a lot mentally to shift from throwing and fi elding a baseball to catching a football and being aggressive with people,” he said. “It also makes for some long days.” Presley is by now accustomed to managing the logistics and mental gymnastics of double-duty sum- mers, and he enters this offseason more physically capable than ever before. Over the winter he added 15 pounds of muscle and now stands 5’7," 170 pounds. He said that he’s never felt faster round- ing the bases, and at shortstop he regularly reaches for long plays to his left that he never would have tried a year ago. But while Presley is bigger, faster and more accomplished than last year, he hopes to lead the Lions back to the level of success he experienced as a sophomore when they played for a state title in football and advanced to the state playoffs in baseball. “It showed me what it takes to succeed and what kind of per- son you have to be,” he said. “To be apart of that again would be amazing.” photo by Gary Ordway Sports Action Photography Payton Presley is this year's Cottage Grove Sentinel ath- lete of the year. Just a junior, Presley will be back for the Lions football and baseball teams in 2015-2016. B ORIGO Continued from 1B played loose. I was able to just go out and do my thing,” she said. For Borigo, the challenge of selecting a school paled in com- parison to that of her earlier de- cision to pursue basketball over softball. As a nine-year-old, Borigo joined the Northwest Bullets, a regional all-star softball team that played at college-scouted tournaments throughout the West. The day before her 10th birthday, she hit her fi rst home run, and soon afterward she be- came one of the top recruits of her class. But while Borigo said she was stressed by the constant atten- tion of college coaches, she kept playing because of the invest- ment that her family had made in her budding career. As a freshman for the Lions, Borigo batted .577 with three home runs. But the pressure had reached a boiling point. “It had gotten to the point where I didn’t want to play any- more,” she recalled. Following her sophomore basketball season (she was a starter in each of her fi rst two seasons), Borigo told her family and friends that she would not be returning to softball. Their responses were mixed. “A lot of people were wor- ried that I had given up on this chance to get my school paid for, but deep down, I knew that I could still make that happen through basketball,” Borigo said. Caring for your Health WE OFFER: 6SLQH &DUH 2UWKRSHGLF6SRUWV 5HKDE -RE ,QMXULHV 09$ :RUN &RQGLWLRQLQJ )RRW &DUH &KURQLF 3DLQ 6\QGURPH 6WDELOL]DWLRQ 7KHUDS\ 0DQXDO 7KHUDS\ 0F.HQ]LH 0HWKRG )5(( XQOLPLWHG DFFHVV WR $Q\WLPH )LWQHVV &OXE GXULQJ FOLQLF KRXUV /XQFKWLPH HYHQLQJ HDUO\ PRUQLQJ DSSRLQWPHQWV &RQYHQLHQW ORFDWLRQ ZLWKLQ WKH 6DIHZD\ 3OD]D Cottage Grove Physical Therapy ??? &DUULH 6NRZ DPT Heather LaPrath A Merit Rehab Facility ( 0DLQ 6W 6XLWH &RWWDJH *URYH ZZZFRWWDJHJURYHSWFRP photo by Matt Hollander Conner Borigo is this year's Cottage Grove female ath- lete of the year. She will attend Northwest Christian Uni- versity next year and play basketball for the Beacons. After the dust settled, Borigo went to work. She would shoot baskets twice a day with her mom, Angie, who played at Or- egon State University. Borigo also joined the Willamette Val- ley Basketball Academy, a trav- eling squad akin with similar commitments as the Northwest Bullets. “I’m a really dedicated play- er. 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