The Summer of Morgan

KPMG, one of the accounting firms, along with Ernst & Young, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers, who make up the Big Four, has a history that dates back to the early 1800s and today employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.

So they know what they're looking for when they hire 2,000 interns to assist with their U.S. operations each summer.

Last year more than 23,000 people applied for those positions, one of which was Morgan Johnson, a student at Montana with an admittedly thin resume when it comes to relatable experience.

Nothing would have jumped off the page to the KPMG recruiters who arrived in Missoula and set up at UM's College of Business, until they got to the most important entry on Johnson's resume: Member, Griz softball team, 2016-present.

"When I interviewed with them, I didn't really have the job experience, so I just referenced softball whenever I could," said Johnson, who is coming off a breakout junior season. "And it worked."

It's why the management information systems major is in Orlando this week, going through training for the summer-long internship she landed with KPMG in Denver, one of the eight percent of those 23,000 to be chosen.

Maybe it's because KPMG has learned that bringing in student-athletes makes everything go much more smoothly. Those big talking points emphasized on the first day of training? Student-athletes haven't just learned about them in a book. They live them.

"They talked about how we need teamwork and how you need to be able to manage your time. I kind of had to chuckle. Those are things I do on a day-to-day basis. It's pretty much what being a student-athlete is like," said Johnson.

"Walking into this and having that underneath me, it's awesome. I can see how the game of softball is paying me back. It's awesome to see it go into motion."

Landing a coveted internship -- "They basically told us that if we don't mess up, we'd probably get a job out of it," said Johnson -- is only one of the valuable experiences to come her way, making this the Summer of Morgan.

Earlier this month she spent four days at the NCAA's national office in Indianapolis attending its Career in Sports Forum.

Again, she managed to stand out, this time among other student-athletes. More than 400 from across NCAA Divisions I, II and III applied. Two hundred were chosen to attend.

Who knows what it might lead to, but it's nice to have knowledge and options.

"I didn't know what to expect going into it. Basically we learned about the opportunities in collegiate athletics on the administrative side," said Johnson.

"We learned about all the administrative things that go on that you don't realize being an athlete. It was really good perspective. I'm starting to understand and appreciate what everyone does for us."

Everything on her plate this summer is about five ball fields away from what she thought she would be doing, when she enrolled at Montana with an eye on becoming an orthodontist.

The Big Sky High grad was a member of her school's Health Science Academy, but it only took a semester in college to discover it wasn't the right route.

Both of her parents were business majors, so she gave that a try.

"I took my first intro class in management information systems, and I was pretty much compelled by it. It was very interesting to me," she said.

That first year she was set up with an upperclassman student-athlete mentor, Madison Worst, a sprinter on the track and field team who five years ago became the first Grizzly to attend the Career in Sports Forum. Johnson is the second.

"I told her it would be a dream for me to combine sports and business, and she brought up the Career in Sports Forum. I had to wait from my freshman year to be eligible to apply," Johnson said.

If the NCAA forum was mostly general -- here are the types of jobs in college athletics and what they are all about -- her internship with KPMG feels more like the first steps on a possible career path.

One was an introduction. One might someday pay the bills.

It's a paid internship but she'll stay with relatives in nearby Arvada to save on expenses. Working in the IT Audit and Risk Assurance departments, she'll have additional training later this summer in Los Angeles.

"I'm still learning (what I'll be doing on a day-to-day basis), but it's providing solutions and problem solving for technology information," she said. "It's like the definition of my major, which is pretty cool."

She's up for all of it, literally and figuratively. It's almost like KPMG knew.

"Some people here were like, Oh, my gosh, we had to wake up at 8 a.m. today! I'm like, This is sleeping in! It's a different viewpoint, I guess. Some people don't understand what being a student-athlete is," said Johnson.

"They actually brought up the word grit this week. It's something (coach Melanie Meuchel) says all the time, that we need to be a gritty team. I was laughing because I don't hear this ever!"

Her final day with KPMG, at least as an intern, will be Aug. 9. She'll have just a two-week break until the fall semester begins at Montana.

In the spring, she'll be one of four seniors who will try to lead the Griz softball team back to the Big Sky Conference tournament and beyond.

"This (internship) is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to be able to get that Big Four experience and have that on my resume. There is a huge demand in the market right now," she said.

"This is not normal for me. It's very new and can be super uncomfortable. I've been pretty sheltered living in Missoula. Now I'm learning what life is like outside of sports and what a very demanding job with a lot of hours is like."

Of course she already knows. She's been a student-athlete. She has all the tools she'll need to succeed.

University of Montana Athletics

Players Mentioned

Morgan Johnson

Related Videos