Corey Peterson: A Remembrance

At SportsTravel and the TEAMS Conference, we are in the sports-event business. But we’re also just as much in the relationship business. Work acquaintances often become personal acquaintances. When you work in an industry long enough — and you enjoy the company of those with whom you work — it’s inevitable.

And in every industry, certain people always seem to be a friend to everyone. That was certainly the case with Corey Peterson.

I can’t recall exactly the first time I met Corey but it was most certainly at one of the first TEAMS Conferences I attended after I started working at SportsTravel. Corey was with the Hampton CVB in Virginia when we first met and later worked for Richmond Region Tourism. We began with a few hellos. And as things happen in any industry where you see people again and again, the hellos turned into small conversations, which turned into larger conversations. The next thing you know, you start to know someone.

In the case of Corey, our relationship evolved exactly on those lines.

One year not long after we met and after we had announced our SportsTravel Award nominations, we received a long and well-written letter from Corey. In the letter, he regretted that a major soccer tournament in the Richmond area, the Jefferson Cup, was not on our ballot. He walked through every detail of why he thought the event deserved recognition if not that year, then in the years to come. With nearly 1,000 youth soccer teams coming to town and filling hotels for miles outside of Richmond, it was a good case to make.

Not long after, he invited me out for a press trip to see the event and to show us what we’d missed. I took him up on the offer. On my arrival, Corey was waiting with his car and I was surprised to learn I was the only one on the press trip. When I got to my hotel room, he had left a gift basket that included a signed mini basketball from Richmond-based VCU. I learned later that the signature was just Corey’s, a bit of a joke to get things off to a light mood.

Over a few days in Richmond, I started to get to know him better. We had similar musical tastes. We both loved to talk sports and liked the same commentators. I gave him grief that the soccer club organizing the tournament had their offices right next to a restaurant we had eaten at the day before, so did everything in Richmond happen in this one block? He showed me more of the city and I grew to appreciate the destination and his work. And when we finally went to see the Jefferson Cup, and a coached yelled out “Nice cross!” to one of his players as we walked by, neither of us being terribly big soccer fans at the time were even sure what he was talking about. (I do know, now…) For the rest of our trip — and for years after — if something seemingly good happened, one of us would just say “nice cross.”

Shortly after that visit, when Corey came through on a work trip to Colorado where I live, he asked to meet up for breakfast. Unbeknownst to me, he brought with him his boss in Richmond at the time, Cleo Battle, now the head at Louisville Tourism. I’m a University of Colorado graduate and when Cleo saw the CU sticker on my car in the parking lot, he grinned that huge Cleo Battle grin and mentioned his ties to the university. As I watched Corey roll his eyes, I learned for the first time that Corey was somehow a fan of the University of Nebraska, and he learned that inviting Cleo to breakfast had been a terrible mistake. It was one of the best breakfasts I’ve ever had — two against one — making an instant friend in Cleo and deepening the relationship with Corey at the same time as we gave him the hardest time possible.

That breakfast evolved to the inevitable next steps of texting on college football weekends. The Buffs did this, the Huskers did that. And it led to other occasional messages. I had put that VCU basketball in our basement so that my then very young son could play with it. One time my son was bouncing the ball and wanted to know if the guy who signed it was famous. I sent Corey a photo of the moment and told him that I told my son, yes, the guy who signed the ball was very famous. “I see no lies,” he replied.

On another trip through Colorado, Corey invited me to a Denver Nuggets game, on the condition I drive him to the airport to catch his flight after the game. It was a fair deal. We got to know each other even better. When the PA system played “Ghostbusters,” he mentioned how he didn’t appreciate the song or the artist, Ray Parker Jr. — someone whose other work I was quite familiar with and liked. It started a friendly argument, mostly because I had apparently opened a long-standing wound that already existed between him and his older brother, Pete, who shared my views. Before I knew it, I was sitting courtside at the Nuggets game talking to Pete on the phone because Corey said I’d like him better. On the ride to the airport, I cued up as much Ray Parker music as was sitting in my then iPod, which was a surprising amount. Corey just shook his head. Later on, I changed his contact picture in my phone to a picture of Ray Parker, which came up any time he called or texted, making me laugh almost every time.

Corey eventually left the bureau in Richmond, but we stayed in touch. He texted on birthdays, on Father’s Day, on game days, on some random music thing he thought I’d like. And in a gift to Corey, my son eventually — and randomly — became a Philadelphia Eagles fan. Corey was pretty much the only other Eagles fan I had ever know. I’d send him photos of my son in his Eagles gear and even though they had never met, they both ended up knowing everything about each other.

When I told my son recently that I’d take him to an Eagles game this season, and when the game ended up being the contest coming up October 20 with the New York Giants, Corey reminded me it was just a train ride away. So, we got tickets to meet up, excited to go with Pete Ciriello on our sales team — a massive Giants fan who got us seats near him and near the Eagles’ entrance to the field. I knew Corey and Pete would find each other amusing, and that my son would be on Corey’s side. The thought of it gave me considerable joy. I also knew I’d get considerable ribbing about Nebraska’s recent football win over Colorado, one that Corey and I had spent the better part of that evening texting about. The trash talk was going to come in person for sure.

Which is why it was so shocking on the night of our closing party at TEAMS ’24 this year to learn that Corey had quite suddenly passed away, at only 44 years old, of an apparent heart attack. Even more shocking in that he had just texted me and my other longtime colleague Yvonne Garcia, who was closer to Corey than I was, earlier that morning. The night before at our TEAMS VIP dinner, I had mentioned to yet another friend of Corey’s that we planned to go to the Eagles game in a few weeks. She texted him a photo of herself, me and Yvonne to show we were all together and that she had heard about the game. He texted the next morning to say he had gone to bed early and woke up to the photo. “See what happens when you go to bed early? You miss all the fun messages.” It was the last message he’d send me. His passing shortly after that text was sudden and a reminder of how fragile life, and relationships, can be.

As the news spread of his passing during our closing party, a few of our most veteran TEAMS attendees gathered offsite to reminisce. The bar we found was fairly empty and it was nice to share some stories even in the suddenness of the news. That his passing happened at TEAMS while many of his friends were gathered was perhaps fitting. As the night went on, and our official closing party ended, many of our attendees found their way to this bar as well. There were plenty of people there I knew, and many that I didn’t know. But they were there getting to know each other, sharing those common experiences after our events where some of the deepest relationships form — similar to the one I and many others made with Corey.

The thought dawned on me that somewhere in there, someone was meeting their own Corey, maybe starting with a casual hello, maybe continuing a conversation they started earlier in the week, maybe deepening a relationship that was already at that conversation stage. It’s what makes the sports-events industry so special.

From the beginning, when SportsTravel and TEAMS were created, seeming rivals in destinations fighting for the same business have been friendly, as have the event organizers pitching that business. Many have become and continue to be true friends. It’s not clear when that line crosses from business relationship to personal relationship, but you know when you cross it.

It’s one reason many of us that night and since have been surprised at the depths of the separate relationships we all had or are learning we had with Corey Peterson. For one person, he managed to make as many relationships as anyone could possibly make. And he had a way of making you feel like yours was the only relationship he had. I’ll deeply miss his company, as will many others. But it makes me grateful for the many relationships I have in our wonderful industry, and the ones that I have yet to make.

Jason Gewirtz is vice president of the Northstar Meetings Group Sports Division and executive editor and publisher of SportsTravel.