How a Georgetown Alumna Landed Her Dream Job at ESPN College GameDay

Courtney Clawson (G’25)

Courtney Clawson has spent her entire life around college football. Her father coached the sport for 36 years (including 11 as head coach at Wake Forest), and Courtney grew up going to games every weekend, sitting in on broadcaster meetings, and making pilgrimages to ESPN's campus in Bristol, Connecticut. So when a job posting appeared on social media last year advertising a PR role for ESPN’s College GameDay television program, the reaction was immediate and visceral.

"This is the only job I'd leave my current job for right now," she told the hiring team during her interview. She meant it.

Today, Clawson is the lead communications and PR professional for College GameDay, one of the most iconic franchises in sports television. It's the role she was, in every sense, built for, and her Georgetown University graduate education played a defining role in getting her there.

A Career Built on Strong Foundations

Before landing at ESPN, Clawson worked in communications at two of the most prestigious media institutions in the country. She worked in PR at The Washington Post, then transitioned to NBC News, where she handled communications for NBC Nightly News and Dateline, eventually relocating from Washington, D.C., to New York as her career accelerated. It was there, happy and professionally settled, that the College GameDay opportunity found her.

The competition was fierce. Recruiters told her they had never seen so many applicants for a single position. Rather than assume the role was hers to lose, she approached the process with methodical preparation and a clear-eyed understanding of what would set her apart.

"I shut my computer, opened a notebook, and wrote for an hour," she recalled. "Different crises I had handled, big media wins, interactions with high-profile talent, moments where I learned something hard. So that any question they could throw at me, I'd have a real answer ready."

That discipline — the instinct to prepare, to document, to reflect, to position herself — traces directly to her time in the Master’s in Public Relations & Corporate Communications program at Georgetown University.

Georgetown as a Career Compass

Clawson enrolled in the program while working at The Washington Post, initially planning to attend classes in person. When a new job at NBC sent her traveling and working longer hours, Georgetown's flexibility to take academically rigorous courses online allowed her to stay the course.

"I would have been crushed if I couldn't have continued the program," she said. "But I was able to adjust my schedule and even the courses I was taking to fit my changing career. Having career and educational mobility at the same time is a game-changer."

That adaptability isn't just logistical — it reflects something fundamental about how the Public Relations & Corporate Communications program is designed. Courses are taught by working practitioners who bring the realities of the field into the classroom. Clawson's sports communications professor works for the NFL. Her capstone advisor, media relations adjunct lecturer Trina Orlando, remains a trusted mentor and professional contact to this day.

"In addition to Capstone advising, Trina also helped develop the soft skills," she said. "Like having confidence as a communicator and reassuring me that my instincts were good because when you're in your 20s, you're constantly wondering if you're on the right path."

When Clawson's ESPN interview included a written assignment to build out a communications plan under a 24-hour deadline, she went straight back to her Georgetown notes.

"I still had my copy of the Georgetown Framework from our Elements of Communications Planning class," she said. "So, I knew what needed to go into the plan, and I knew how to tailor it. I took that class my first semester, and then got to use what I learned just a few years later to help land my dream job."

Life at GameDay

These days, her role spans everything from on-the-ground media management during fall game weekends to upfronts planning and directing media strategy at high-profile events like the NFL Draft, where college football and the NFL converge and where she got her first taste of the full-scale ESPN production machine. She introduced herself to the security teams, stage managers, and producers who keep the entire operation running, exchanged contact information, and observed her NFL PR colleagues at work. The experience gave her the opportunity to learn from them before her own season begins in the fall.

"What’s great about working at ESPN and, really, everywhere I’ve worked in my career is that communications and PR people support each other,” she said. “When things get busy for a colleague, we all jump in and help, and the same happens when one of my programs gets busy.”

That team-first thinking — earning trust, showing up ready, building relationships before you need them — is, she'll tell you, something Georgetown reinforced and sharpened.

Courtney has already referred a close friend and an undergrad sorority sister to the program. And when asked whether she'd do it all again?

"I would, one hundred percent," she said. "You're never going to regret getting a master's degree. And when it’s from Georgetown? People notice."