Father and Daughter Share UW Legacy, NFL Careers

The University of Wyoming and the NFL have a few things in common. Among them are Kevin Rochlitz and his daughter, Riley Rochlitz.

Kevin graduated from UW with a bachelor's degree in marketing and eventually secured the position of senior vice president/chief sales officer for the Baltimore Ravens after joining the team in 2003. His daughter, Riley Rochlitz, of Alpine and Reisterstown, Md., followed the family footsteps to UW and earned a bachelor's degree in marketing, professional sales and general management last spring. In June 2025, she found her own place with another NFL team that sports a fierce bird for a mascot -- the Philadelphia Eagles.

"I absolutely love my job. Sorry, Dad, but I think I work for the best organization in the NFL," Riley says of her position as a corporate partnership activation coordinator.

"I think it's great. I'm very proud of Riley, that she can establish her own career and do her own thing," says Kevin, who is in his 24th season with the Ravens. "I can't speak more highly of the Philadelphia Eagles organization … They've always been one of the top teams in the league."

And, while Riley builds her career, the elder Rochlitz still finds time to give back to UW.

Attending UW allowed Kevin to become involved in a variety of things, such as working in the athletics department and volunteering -- opportunities you wouldn't typically have at a larger school, he says.

As an undergraduate, Kevin accepted an offer from Jim Hill, the UW Athletics marketing director at the time, to volunteer for the department. He volunteered daily as an undergraduate student and eventually received the prestigious Admiral Land Trophy, given to a non-athlete or intern "who has done the most to promote intercollegiate athletics at the university," according to UW Athletics' website.

Now, he serves as the chair of the UW College of Business's advisory board. In 2021, he was named a distinguished alumnus for the college.

Kevin and his wife, Melissa, also created a scholarship -- the Kevin and Melissa Rochlitz Athletic Marketing Internship Endowment -- to benefit a student intern each year. They also are involved with and donate to UW's Center for Professional Selling.

"Ultimately, it's important to give back and showcase what I've learned in the past, and how I want Riley to perceive what hard work is," Kevin says. "And people see that, and you want your own family to see that."

When Riley, who is going into her second season with the Eagles -- her first in a full-time position -- began applying for jobs, she didn't involve her father in the job search, she says.

"My parents will be the first ones to say I'm very headstrong, and I want to do things on my own. So, it's really incredible to feel like I've made my parents proud with the work ethic that I think Wyoming 100 percent helped instill in me," she says.

Now working in the same industry, it's a cool feeling to meet and learn from people who have worked with her father for so many years, she says.

However, when she first enrolled at UW -- encouraged by her father and grandparent's attendance as well as the opportunities the university presented -- it wasn't with the intention to work in sports. Her plan was to pursue a career as a pharmacist.

"I started off as a pre-pharmaceutical major and started getting to the harder science classes and quickly realized that it was not the path that I was meant to be on," she says.

Going through that phase of life and not knowing what she wanted after graduating high school, Riley found a sense of comfort returning to something she knew while growing up -- football.

"Being able to revert back to my childhood in that sports aspect of my life, and getting a marketing internship with the athletics department, I think made me feel really comfortable in the work that I was doing, very confident in it, and that's kind of where that passion stemmed for me for working in sports," she says.

After deciding pharmaceutical sciences was not her path, Riley enrolled in the College of Business and earned an internship with UW Athletics' marketing department, which provided a jump-start to the next level.

"Working alongside fantastic people in the athletics department at Wyoming and being able to get involved in so many different sports and in so many different initiatives from Day One, I think is extremely helpful," she says.

Riley also singled out Molly Burchett, an assistant professor of marketing, Smyrnios Family Sales Professor and President's Distinguished Scholar; and Greg Livingston, an assistant lecturer in the College of Business, for their work making students feel both comfortable and empowered, as well as confident when they leave the class.

Burchett and Livington's classes, as well as her marketing internship, Riley says, helped her gain confidence to set her sights on what she wanted after college and dedicate her time to pursuing it.

Working in the NFL is a privilege, Kevin says. From a team perspective, the NFL is a small business -- there are only 32 jobs like theirs.

"People look at the brand every day, and their fans are maniacal," he says. "So, you represent the brand, and you represent the organization, and that's what we do. It's exciting that Riley gets to do that in Philadelphia, and I get to do it here."

"Go birds," Riley adds.