Heitner Stresses Becoming an Agent With Integrity
By Caleb Keller
Members of the IUSMA got a refreshing view of sports agents on Thursday night when Darren Heitner, founder and CEO of Dynasty Athlete Representation, spoke to students about the importance of becoming an agent who follows rules and approaches the business with the right mentality. Heitner originally went to the University of Florida to study Political Science but after only one year he decided he "hated" politics and wanted to pursue a career in sports. His first big break came when he got an internship at Career Sports Entertainment in Atlanta. He told the students that on the first day of his internship he was assigned a project to figure out where Nate McMillan should take a coaching job in the NBA. He said that his proposal was a big reason why McMillan chose the Portland Trailblazers where he still coaches today. After a successful experience with his internship in Atlanta he returned to Gainesville to complete his undergraduate work.
He was confident in the fact that he wanted to be a sports agent so he started by creating a blog with sports agent news which he devoted himself to updating daily. Early on, Sportsagentblog.com was viewed my no more of an audience than himself and family and friends. Yet after time, more and more people started taking notice of Heitner’s blog and soon he was a name that people were starting to recognize in the athlete representation community. Less than a year later, Heitner made the extremely bold decision to start his own sports agency with absolutely no clients accompanied with absolutely no experience. Heitner did have a law background and he started my representing PBA bowlers. Eventually more and more bowlers realized the good work that Darren’s Dynasty Athlete Representation was doing and before long he had a respectable client base. He then discovered his first baseball played through MySpace and just like with the PBA bowlers, soon his respected work starting bring him name recognition as well as more clients.
The main point that Darren wanted to convey to the IUSMA members was becoming a sports agent that worked with integrity. He made light of the fact that there are a lot of shady sports agents who illegally pay players and will do anything and everything to try to obtain top talent. Heitner, however, is only 25 years old with his own company with an increasing client base of talented athletes and he has made an emphasis of following rules and surrounding himself with good people. The student members had a lot of questions to ask Darren and he answered all of them in depth. Darren was very engaging with the audience and he left a great impression to all who came. He told the students to not let anybody tell them that they couldn’t make it as a sports agent. If they want it bad enough, he reassured them that their dream would come true. Heitner ended his hour-long talk with five simple words that summed up his message, “do it the right way.”
He was confident in the fact that he wanted to be a sports agent so he started by creating a blog with sports agent news which he devoted himself to updating daily. Early on, Sportsagentblog.com was viewed my no more of an audience than himself and family and friends. Yet after time, more and more people started taking notice of Heitner’s blog and soon he was a name that people were starting to recognize in the athlete representation community. Less than a year later, Heitner made the extremely bold decision to start his own sports agency with absolutely no clients accompanied with absolutely no experience. Heitner did have a law background and he started my representing PBA bowlers. Eventually more and more bowlers realized the good work that Darren’s Dynasty Athlete Representation was doing and before long he had a respectable client base. He then discovered his first baseball played through MySpace and just like with the PBA bowlers, soon his respected work starting bring him name recognition as well as more clients.
The main point that Darren wanted to convey to the IUSMA members was becoming a sports agent that worked with integrity. He made light of the fact that there are a lot of shady sports agents who illegally pay players and will do anything and everything to try to obtain top talent. Heitner, however, is only 25 years old with his own company with an increasing client base of talented athletes and he has made an emphasis of following rules and surrounding himself with good people. The student members had a lot of questions to ask Darren and he answered all of them in depth. Darren was very engaging with the audience and he left a great impression to all who came. He told the students to not let anybody tell them that they couldn’t make it as a sports agent. If they want it bad enough, he reassured them that their dream would come true. Heitner ended his hour-long talk with five simple words that summed up his message, “do it the right way.”
