Summer officially began Monday morning when I arrived for my first day at Sporting Kansas City. I am one of an army of interns that will be working with the MLS club for the summer, ranging from security to marketing to broadcast. In just the first two days I’ve met more than a dozen of the folks that make the gigantic machine that is “Sporting Kansas City” work. The work we’ll be doing this summer is a great sneak-peek behind the curtain that will give us really valuable hands-on experience in all the aspects of putting on a live, televised professional sporting event.

This week is a heck of a week to plunge head-first into Sporting’s schedule. There are two games this week (typically the teams play once each weekend, with occasional bye weeks)—one MLS regular season match in Denver against the Colorado Rapids and one Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup match against the New England Revolution tomorrow evening. However, Sporting will host the Revolution for their Open Cup match despite on-going construction at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park.

That means the team (and those of us working behind the scenes) have half the time to prepare for each match and twice the number of deadlines to meet. It certainly makes for a helluva first week.

Come see the team play in Kansas City for the first time this season Wednesday night at the Blue Valley District Athletic Complex and be sure to watch My KSMO TV this Saturday at 8 p.m. to see Sporting take on the Rapids.