Meet the 49ers’ Cisco Networking Academy Apprentice

Former Division I soccer participant Michael Lowe is gaining hands-on community engineering expertise with the San Francisco 49ers, making use of expertise from Cisco Networking Academy in one of the related environments in sports activities. 

As a Division I soccer participant at UC Berkeley, Michael Lowe as soon as stepped onto Levi’s® Stadium’s discipline beneath the brilliant lights of recreation day. This summer time, he returned to the stadium in a really totally different function, working behind the scenes as a Cisco Networking Academy Apprentice alongside the San Francisco 49ers Community Engineering staff. 

Lowe is aware of what it’s prefer to compete and lead on the sphere from his time as UC Berkeley soccer captain. Now he’s seeing the sport from a wholly totally different perspective—contained in the IT operations that help one of many NFL’s most technology-driven organizations. 

Followers expertise each landing, replay, announcement, concession buy, and media interplay seamlessly, due to complicated community infrastructure working behind the scenes. In the course of the apprenticeship, Lowe is gaining first-person, hands-on studying expertise with the know-how programs that help recreation day operations throughout the stadium because the 49ers host high-profile occasions and worldwide sporting matches and put together for the 2026-2027 NFL season. 

Earlier this 12 months, Lowe participated within the Cisco Networking Academy Dream Group at Cisco Reside, the place he constructed relationships and shared his objective of mixing his sports activities background along with his new profession in community engineering. These conversations in the end helped open the door to the 49ers apprenticeship. 

I spoke with Lowe concerning the expertise, the teachings he’s realized, and the way Cisco Networking Academy helped launch his journey into community engineering. 

From the gridiron to the server room

Hayley: You performed school soccer your self. You’re a D1 athlete. How does that background give that means to this chance? It’s nearly such as you’ve made it to the large leagues in a approach. How has your expertise as an athlete formed this expertise on the opposite aspect?

Michael: My expertise as an athlete has just about formed my complete skilled profession. I went to Berkeley, which is correct down the highway. I truly had a possibility to play on this stadium after I was in school. We performed Oregon right here in 2014.

So now, strolling into it on this aspect of issues, it’s surreal to have the ability to take a look at it from behind the scenes—not on the sphere, however inside a technical workplace—and actually see how all of the departments work collectively and the way IT is accountable for ensuring the connectivity is there, the safety is there, and everyone has entry to what they want.

I’ve walked into this case with that very same mindset. Even in relation to studying community engineering, I take the soccer method.

In community engineering, you have got quite a lot of totally different phrases. You’ve got IPv4, IPv6, STP, RSTP—totally different protocols. The way in which I break them down is rather like a soccer playbook. We’ve got totally different packages: 4-3, 3-4, dime, nickel. A few of these phrases might not ring a bell, however now we have all these totally different packages, and inside these packages now we have totally different performs, totally different terminology that now we have to know and memorize.

I take that very same method into know-how and community engineering. We’ve got totally different protocols, and people protocols are accountable for various things and have totally different terminology. However total, it’s all about safety, connectivity, and having entry.

What followers don’t see on recreation day

Hayley: You’ve been on the sphere. What’s one thing that’s shocked you about what goes on behind the scenes to make every little thing run at a stadium?

Michael: Simply seeing how IT is concerned in configuring all the gadgets and know-how that every division makes use of.

Whether or not it’s the TVs across the stadium that followers see once they go to the concession stands, having the menu objects on the televisions—these are areas IT is accountable for.

The identical goes for press field gadgets. When you have got totally different media teams within the press bins and of their places of work, they want entry and connectivity. Even the stadium microphone system works beneath the IT division. So it’s fairly cool to see how hands-on we’re, but additionally to see how all of these issues work collectively. Whenever you hear your identify being referred to as after making a play, it’s good to know that the IT staff is ensuring these issues are working for everyone.

Discovering a path by means of Cisco Networking Academy

Hayley: How did you first get began with Cisco Networking Academy?

Michael: I’m from Washington, D.C., initially. In D.C., now we have a D.C. Infrastructure Academy. I made a decision to enter CCNA community engineering, so I joined that program. Via that program, I actually excelled. Once more, I took that method from soccer and walked into the classroom prepared to interrupt down these phrases, get a greater understanding of community engineering, ask questions, study, and never be afraid to make errors and study from them.

My teacher, Tabitha, was nice. I give her quite a lot of credit score for serving to me perceive what community engineering is. I had no background in IT. My diploma is in authorized research, so it was actually a profession change for me.

Via that, I used to be nominated to go to Cisco Reside. 

Behind the scenes at Cisco Reside

Hayley: What was your expertise as a part of the Cisco Networking Academy Dream Group at Cisco Reside like, and the way did it assist set you up for this function?

Michael: At Cisco Reside, we did quite a lot of bodily deployment—not a lot technical work—however we acquired to see the blueprints and speak to Cisco trade leaders about how these occasions are deliberate months upfront.

We realized about all of the various things that have to be in place for occasions like these to achieve success. Studying what goes into it on the again finish was extraordinarily cool.

You assume you simply stroll right into a state of affairs and begin setting issues up, however it’s truly quite a lot of planning and blueprinting. It was fairly cool to ask questions and speak to totally different individuals about that.

Additionally, seeing a few of the distributors and the way they work together with Cisco, and the way these relationships are constructed between distributors and Cisco themselves, was beneficial. 

Being with that staff and that group of individuals actually opened my eyes. I’ve a really “it must get finished” method, and I would create some nervousness round myself due to it. However seeing how affected person everybody was, how issues had been deliberate out, and the way a lot self-control that they had in that surroundings actually opened my eyes.

It helped me see you could belief your planning and belief your technique. Issues will get finished. You don’t need to create a false sense of urgency.

Management past the sphere

Hayley: At Berkeley, you had been a part of the Huge C Society, recognizing management on and off the sphere—how has that formed the best way you method teamwork and management in your profession right this moment?

Michael: Yeah, and I’m glad you introduced that up as a result of, being fully clear, early in my collegiate profession I stumbled so much. I needed to get used to it.

After my sophomore 12 months, I took it upon myself to steer by instance. Don’t be the man who’s vocal however not placing within the work. I’d reasonably be the man who’s quiet and simply placing within the work. Via that course of, all the best way as much as my senior 12 months, I used to be acknowledged by my teammates and voted staff captain. 

I used to be capable of improve my educational requirements, enhance my work ethic on the sphere and within the weight room, and ultimately turn out to be a vocal chief for the blokes. After they noticed me lead by instance, it opened up my confidence to turn out to be extra vocal.

Being part of the Huge C Society, I embodied accountability, management, and accountability on and off the sphere. To be acknowledged by a gaggle like that was an honor, and I used to be extraordinarily grateful for it.

Expertise and alternative can open doorways

Hayley: How do you see these experiences shaping what’s subsequent for you in your profession?

Michael: I take a look at it as a sworn statement—a narrative I’ll be capable of look again on and say that, as a brand new scholar getting into a brand new profession in a really broad discipline, experiences like Dream Group have actually given me the motivation and confidence to inform myself that I can do that.

They’ve additionally given me the chance to actually study—to be a sponge in these environments, take all of the notes you may, ask all of the questions you may, and make all of the connections you may as a result of these are once-in-a-lifetime alternatives.

Having the ability to speak to totally different individuals alongside their profession paths and listen to the place they began, and the way alternatives got here from the issues they believed in and labored for—in addition to from the individuals who helped them alongside the best way—is extremely beneficial.

Taking this expertise and utilizing it as a catapult into the subsequent expertise is what I’m hoping to do. I need to study every little thing I can whereas I’m right here, so I’m ready for no matter comes subsequent.

For Lowe, the apprenticeship is greater than a summer time expertise. It’s a testomony to how the precise mixture of expertise, mentorship, and alternative can open doorways to significant careers. Via Cisco Networking Academy, college students acquire the technical data, confidence, and trade connections wanted to take the subsequent step of their skilled journey. From the CCNA classroom to Cisco Reside to an NFL stadium, Lowe’s story demonstrates how hands-on studying experiences may also help learners flip ambition into alternative and launch careers in know-how.

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