{"id":1033024,"date":"2026-08-30T13:39:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1033024\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T13:39:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T13:39:19","slug":"nbas-youngest-intern-gen-zer-washed-his-college-basketball-teams-dirty-clothes-and-mopped-floors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1033024\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA’s youngest intern: Gen Zer washed his college basketball team\u2019s dirty clothes and mopped floors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gone are the days when showing a passion in a subject was enough to land an internship. With more than 4 million Gen Zers<\/a> unemployed (and AI continuing to wipe out entry-level roles<\/a>), even a degree is no longer enough<\/a> to get your foot in door.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And in an industry like professional sports, where competition for even unpaid roles is cutthroat, breaking in often takes even more creativity and sometimes, a willingness to do the jobs no one else wants.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Daniel Sung resorted to cleaning his college basketball team\u2019s laundry and mopping the court floors to stand out\u2014and he ended up securing a courtside seat to success as one of the youngest interns in NBA history at just 19 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was mopping floors, people would come take pictures of me and call me \u2018mop boy\u2019. I\u2019m a human being. At some point, when people keep laughing it does get to you,\u201d the Vanderbilt University scholarship student told Fortune.<\/p>\n

Sung spent a year volunteering as manager of the prestigious <\/strong>college\u2019s <\/strong>basketball team and got mocked relentlessly for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven my friends would be like, \u2018dude, you\u2019re a janitor\u2019. But honestly, I knew what my ultimate vision was, and that was to get this internship\u2014and I was able to really prove them wrong because, realistically, no one after their freshman year gets the internship. Now they\u2019re all like, \u2018Daniel, we\u2019re so proud of you\u2014even the people like that didn\u2019t know me before.\u201d<\/p>\n

From mopping floors to multiple job offers rolling in<\/p>\n

Sung\u2019s drive was shaped early on by his family\u2019s experience immigrating from South Korea to San Bernardino, Calif., and opening a 7-Eleven and later a Mexican restaurant to make ends meet. Without any personal connections in the sports industry, Sung knew he\u2019d have to open his own doors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin the sports world, you survive either by being a hustler, or you have people that open doors for you\u2014with my background, I have no one that can open those doors for me, the only person that can open those doors like myself,\u201d Sung said. \u201cI knew working in sports first would give me the ground that I needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was expected to do 30 to 40 hours of unpaid work, and the work that I was doing was washing laundry for these 6-foot-8 basketball players that had just finished hours of practice. So I\u2019m doing their laundry until 1 a.m., passing the ball to them during game days. If a player falls, I\u2019m the person running with the towel and getting on my knees, wiping that spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

NBA internships are usually reserved for college juniors or seniors\u2014around 20 to 22 years old. This year, the basketball league received more than 19,000 applications <\/a>for its 2025 Summer Internship program. <\/strong>And despite being years younger than the competition, Sung said his application to join the LA Clippers because of the very experience his college peers had snubbed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my interview, one of the people said my story was unbeatable because a lot of people come into sports and just say they want to work in sports because it\u2019s really cool or they love basketball,\u201d Sung added. \u201cBut I literally built up my past year for it. I wasn\u2019t there to joke around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week was the final week of his marketing internship. Sung had been posting updates about his experience on LinkedIn, detailing the challenges he faced and the lessons he learned along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I started posting on LinkedIn, which was around four weeks ago, a lot of people have actually noticed my story\u2014and that\u2019s really opened the door to a lot of opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attention online has already translated into thousands of followers and tangible job offers. Sung now works with two startups: one, a job-application platform with an AI focus, where he\u2019s helped launch a new cohort program; the other, an agency managing LinkedIn pages for large companies. Later this year, he also has a marketing role lined up with Red Bull in Nashville\u2014which he\u2019ll have to juggle with college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually got those offers just from a month of posting,\u201d Sung said. \u201cThe thing that really opened my eyes after working this internship was that you really have to be innovative, you have to think differently, and you have to get yourself out there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also taught me about how I need to expand my personal brand\u2014hence the LinkedIn posts,\u201d he continued. \u201cAnd as I\u2019ve been posting, I\u2019ve gotten a lot of opportunities and doors I thought would have never opened, so it\u2019s been one heck of a summer, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Advice for Gen Z on landing their dream internship<\/p>\n

Instead of applying for jobs that fit your experience after graduating, Sung advises fellow Gen Zers to first think of their ultimate career goal\u2014and align every experience to that, no matter how small.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think of job applications, it\u2019s very important that your life tells a story,\u201d the teenager explained. \u201cMy story was that I wanted to work with the LA Clippers, right? And so I kind of worked backwards from there. If I wanted to work for the LA Clippers, I knew I needed to work in sports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing that you need experience to get experience, Sung figured his best options to get started would be within his college sports team.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think if you want to get your foot in the door, you just have to be very clear on your why, and you have to start very small,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In the end, that one year of drudge work gave him more than a relevant resume entry\u2014it also gave him access.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if it\u2019s the unglorified and unpaid work with unseen visibility, being in an environment where there are professionals in the industry just gives you that exposure,\u201d Sung said, adding that he was able to get career advice from coaches and the college\u2019s director of basketball operations. Whenever they\u2019d pass by him at work, he\u2019d throw quick questions their way.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard for a normal student to do that,\u201d he added. \u201cSo being in that environment, you\u2019re surrounded by people that have made it and so you just have to get in there. But first, you just have to know your why, and that has to be your guiding start through all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune wants to hear about the unusual routes and creative strategies that led to your first role. Get in touch: orianna.royle@fortune.com.<\/p>\n

A version of this story originally published on\u00a0Fortune.com<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0August 21, 2025.<\/p>\n

Read more career advice from Fortune\u2019s Orianna Rosa Royle:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gone are the days when showing a passion in a subject was enough to land an internship. With…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1033025,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[1339,16720,263,209550,3991,32224,1815,605,23990,1260,62,126013,766,67,132,68,8066],"class_list":["post-1033024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-colleges-and-universities","tag-employment","tag-evergreen-refresh","tag-gen-z","tag-internships","tag-interview","tag-job-hunting","tag-job-seekers","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-the-interview-playbook","tag-unemployment","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-work"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117184742528064073","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1033025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}