Take a look at pictures of the coaches in your athletics program. How many men do you see? How many women? How many people of color? Have you ever asked your athletics director how he/she works to make the staffs more reflective of the athletes in the program? We're joined…
Today I’m joined by Dr. Christine Baugh (https://www.cuanschutz.edu/centers/bioethicshumanities/facultystaff/christine-baugh) , an assistant professor in the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Center for Bioethics and Humanities. Christine’s work focuses on acute and chronic health implications of repetitive brain injury from sport, and the resultant individual, institutional, policy and ethical considerations. She was named…
The United States Military Academies play an important role in developing future leaders. All five of the Academies offer competitive athletic programs. As academic excellence is a cornerstone for each one, I wanted to understand how the Faculty Athletics Representative functions inside the military chain of command. This FAR can…
When Universities decide to “re-classify” their institution’s athletics program, it is a big deal. I’m joined by two higher education leaders who led their institution, Northern Kentucky University (https://nkunorse.com) , from NCAA Division II to Division I. Dr. Jim Votruba (https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/why-is-this-man-leaving3/) was the President at NKU from 1997-2012, and recently…
The outcry was fierce and nearly universal (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/sports/ncaabasketball/women-ncaa-tournament-weight-room.html) . Women's basketball teams arriving on site in San Antonio to compete for the 2021 NCAA Division I title were appalled at the so called "strength facilities" available to them as compared to the men,--a few yoga mats and dumbbells. The NCAA…
There has been a narrative for quite sometime about campus building and amenities—you know, lazy rivers, climbing walls, fancy cafeterias…the whole 9 yards. I could talk a lot about the amenities boom on the athletics side of campus—the Athlete Villages and gated communities built just for revenue producing athletes. But,…
A perfect podcast for senior leaders trying to understand the NCAA legal issues in play in the Supreme Court. My guest is an expert in sports law, particularly in the issues the U.S. Supreme Court recently heard in the NCAA v Alston case, Gabe Feldman (https://centerforsport.tulane.edu/people/gabe-feldman) . Gabe is the…
The week before this podcast, the University of Michigan Board of Regents were embroiled in a very public controversy (https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-government/weiser-i-wont-be-canceled-after-u-m-regents-call-his-resignation) with one of their own members. A Regent had publicly attacked three senior State officials, including the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. Several Regents called for the member's resignation and/or…
Delaware’s state capital, a town known more for Dover Air Force Base (AFB), the Dover 500 racetrack, and traffic jams leading to the Delaware beaches, is the setting where higher education history is about to be made. May 15th, a day that should have been filled with exuberance for seniors…
This week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-512_gfbh.pdf) that the NCAA was in violation of antitrust laws with its rules surrounding athlete compensation, specifically around limiting athlete’s educational benefits. My guests today are two UCLA Bruins who have been working on different paths, but both played significant roles in the…
If you are an avid listener to my podcast, you might remember a podcast we did about a year ago that introduced the concept of athlete biometrics and public vs private data collected from various performance software and clothing. Today, we’ll take that discussion one step further and look more…
As states have rushed to deal with legislation surrounding names, images and likenesses, there are a lot of folks involved to help state legislators understand the industry. Its important to state governments that they have a working partnership with higher education institutions in order to factor in their perspectives. As…
There have been a slew of books written about the faults and foibles of college sports, some hitting very close to home as to what is really going on. Five years ago, journalists Joe Nocera (then of the NYT, now of Bloomberg) and Ben Strauss (then of the NYT, now…
Collegiate athletics has never seen so much change coming at them so fast. Athletic departments continue to deal with the fallout of the pandemic, the safety, mental health and wellbeing of their student athletes, conference realignment, advances in data around human performance, fiscal resiliency, and now, names, images and likenesses…
If you’ve been paying attention to college sports at all this past year, the rise in social justice activism has been unlike any other time in recent memory. As this podcast is being recorded, we are in the middle of the trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer charged…
A lot has been written about the legal challenges facing athletes in the new world of NILs--but do campus employees face legal heartburn as well? If that thought has crossed your mind, you are not alone. We are joined by former Vanderbilt University General Counsel (and current partner in Bass,…
In the past year many Division I schools tried to drop sports. Most tried to drop men’s sports; some, like William and Mary and Stanford, dropped a large number of Olympic sports. Almost immediately, the players took to the internet, finding law firms to help them in their quest to…
Heard of the metaverse (https://www.investopedia.com/metaverse-definition-5206578) ? Want to know how to leverage this tech for recruiting Gen Z students to your campus? Then, this podcast is for you. Some of you may know that I have a deep interest in tech and media, particularly as it influences college sports. I’ve…
Over the last 12 months or so, a great reawakening has been happening in the consciousness of sports fans. Some are just now discovering that female college and professional players can generate significant revenues for their schools/employers and themselves is growing. The television eyeballs for the recent WNBA championship series…
Last Saturday, the college football world spun off its axis as Michigan beat Ohio State and Cincinnati broke into the College Football Playoff Top 4. Michigan's victory was the first in the Jim Harbaugh era, and launched the Wolverines into the Big Ten Championship Game. It also secured the future…
Spending, spending, spending. When the college sports model rewards athletics programs for acquiring more resources (while restricting paying the labor force beyond the cost of attendance), there are no guardrails. $10 million coaches are suddenly all the rage. Someone who has been thinking a lot about the necessary spending changes…
College coaching has changed dramatically in the last decade. There are pressures at every level, whether it be Division III and using athletes to drive campus enrollment or Division I where the expectations to win surround a coaching staff every waking moment. But for Division I Olympic sports coaches, there…
In 2020, Clemson University attempted (https://www.thestate.com/sports/college/acc/clemson-university/article246993362.html) to drop a bunch of sports, including men’s track and field. Minnesota did the same thing with four sports (including both indoor and outdoor track and field), and ended up dropping indoor only. Brown University also tried to drop its men’s track and field…
As the NCAA concluded an historic convention this month, much uncertainty surrounds its future. There are those naysayers who believe the NCAA should be disbanded and college athletics should start over again; some believe that the NCAA should break apart into two kinds of athletic entities-one being commercialized sport, the…