Every athlete eventually plays a last game, and Jack Gross, a Norfolk Academy graduate and senior at Tulane University, wants to make sure there’s a plan for what comes next.
Gross is a founder and the chief operating officer of Second Half Network, a free mentorship platform that connects college student-athletes with professionals who can help them move into careers.
Gross leads business development, including partnerships, mentor recruitment, and corporate relationships. The idea grew out of his own experience. He played baseball at Norfolk Academy, started college at Sewanee, then transferred to Tulane, where he now works as a bullpen catcher for the baseball program.
“When my own college baseball path changed, I started asking what comes next,” he says, and soon realized thousands of other athletes were asking the same question.
Gross met Scott Venancio, Second Half Network founder and chief executive officer, in an entrepreneurship class at Tulane’s A. B. Freeman School of Business, where Gross is studying legal studies in business with a minor in entrepreneurship.
“Looking back, it’s pretty cool that a classroom conversation has turned into a real company with a team, mentors, athletes, a corporate partner, and conversations with universities,” Gross says.
The platform is currently in beta. Athletes build profiles around their interests and career goals, then apply to mentors, who hold an introductory call before deciding whether to work together. Athletes pay nothing for the service – the company plans to rely on partnerships with universities and organizations to fund the platform.
Gross says the network has more than 125 mentors from industries including finance and sports administration, and its first cohort of student-athletes began working with mentors this fall. In September, CK1 LLC, an executive advisory and sports technology firm designed to help collegiate athletic departments and professional sports franchises navigate modern operational challenges, became the first participant in the Corporate Mentorship Program, which lets employees volunteer as mentors.
Two of the network’s mentors are from Virginia Beach, and Gross hopes to bring in more from the area. “Virginia Beach shaped how I build,” he says. “It’s a community where relationships matter, and I’ve seen how willing people are to help when you ask.”
Gross strongly encourages interested mentors, companies, former athletes, coaches, and universities to contact him. “You don’t need five hours a week,” he says. “A 20-minute conversation with the right person can change the direction of a young person’s career.”
Gross may be contacted at SecondHalfNetwork.com.