Name: Courtney CorrinClass: Freshman
Sport: Women's Soccer, Track & Field
Major: Law, History and Culture
GPA: 3.55
Aubrey Kragen (AK): How did you decide upon a Law, History & Culture major?
Courtney Corrin (CC): I wanted to do transactional law, specifically, so I wanted to enhance my knowledge on the law part of it. I don't know if I want to go into law school per se -- that's why I want to minor in business administration -- but I think it's always good to have pre-law under your belt, just so you kind of know about the law more. It allows you to be more diverse in what you can do, because I feel like in order to be a great business person, you have to be a great lawyer. And in order to be a great lawyer, I think a holistic education is important.
AK: What exactly is transactional law?
CC: I'd pretty much like to work with sports contracts. I guess you can say more of like a sports agent. But I like to do the paperwork part, so I'm the person behind the scenes, like 'OK, give me the contract and I'll make sure everything's in order,' but I don't actually present anything.
AK: You seem quite young to already have such a grasp on the field. What experience have you had in the past?
CC: A lot of people in my family are lawyers, and my 'play uncle' is Marvin Putnam -- he was on the Michael Jackson case. So I'm just used to it, and my dad started off doing pre-law, but then he switched and got his Master's degree here and went into business admin. He just says doing both is beneficial in the long run.
AK: What made you decide to come to USC?
CC: I just wanted a very good academic school, so I thought, 'Where would I go if I weren't playing sports?' I thought USC was the best for me location-wise. Also just academically, I think it offered a lot -- I wanted the network within USC and I wanted to live in Southern California, so I thought the best connections could be made at USC.
AK: How did you end up playing two sports here? What was the recruiting process like?
CC: So soccer came first. I think I got my first letter when I was in seventh grade to UCLA. So it started really fast because they try to recruit you so young in soccer. They didn't really know about me in track -- because I'm a jumper, specifically -- so I wasn't really known until eighth or ninth grade. I thought I was just going to go to a soccer school, but then I found out I could do both. For me it was a must. Some people say it's not beneficial to play two sports because you're not specializing, but I think it's better for your body to do different things. I was used to it, because in high school my sports were soccer and track so it came as like a unit.
AK: Academically, is it tough to not really have a full offseason like one-sport student-athletes do?
CC: I think I'm lucky that I'm not as social -- I don't always want to party. For me it's easy, because if I'm not running or working out, I'm doing my homework. For me it's easy, because I love to do my work. I find it easier because it makes me more focused because having all these things to do makes me do it. There's no other option.
AK: Lastly, what are your goals here at USC and beyond?
CC: I've come to realize that my one goal is just to get the best out of me. So in sports, whether I jump 23 feet, 22 feet, it's not about that. It's 'Am I going to be my best by the time I leave?' So that's the main goal for sports, and then academics-wise, it's transitioning that mindset into academics. Once I'm done here, I want to find that same happiness within my field. And pre-law is a lot like sports, you kind of have to understand the rules and you want to be the best at it. I think the best thing from coming here is realizing that I'll have a life after sports and that I'll be happy.
