Article written by Kimberly Armstrong, re-published courtesy of The Daily Campus

Student athletes and sports management experts met Thursday morning in the CLAS building to explore athletes’ places as role models and activists.

The round table talk, “Issues in Sports: Athletes and Activism,” was the third and final lecture of Wura Olusekun’s special project for the sports management master’s program. Olusekun said the goal of the panel was to challenge the perception that athletes should remain neutral in public and to encourage conversations about race at the University of Connecticut.

“These conversations are extremely important and they give us the opportunity to see athletes as multidimensional,” Olusekun said during her introduction.

There’s a difference between being a role model and an activist, though, assistant professor of sports management Joseph Cooper said during the panel. While other people can choose athletes as their role models, he explained, athletes have to choose to be activists.

“Similar to the notion that sports don’t operate in a vacuum, we as individuals don’t exist in a vacuum. Our multiple identities are always present,” Cooper said. “I just think taking the time to educate yourself on these issues is important.”

Cooper, whose work involves studying stereotypes about players’ abilities based on race and other factors, said athletes must be empowered to take a stand on issues they care about.

While today’s players have brought attention to the Black Lives Matter movement by wearing black on the court and even boycotting games, one of the best known instances of athlete activism occurred at the 1968 Olympics when track and field stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos supported the Black Power movement by raising their fists in solidarity on the podium.

Morgan Tuck, forward for the UConn women’s basketball team and an 8th-semester business management major, said she thinks it’s important for players to be informed and to experience college life beyond the court. Tuck, for example, joined a sorority and does community service in her free time.

“I think as athletes we kind of live in a bubble, so some of these social justice issues we don’t really experience,” Tuck said. “As athletes we do have a voice and we should use it.”

Tuck said she began to recognize her power to push change as a UConn athlete when a fan asked her to record a video congratulating her and her girlfriend on their recent engagement. While the young women’s parents weren’t entirely comfortable with same sex marriage at the start, Tuck said the video helped smooth things over for the lovestruck Huskies.

Reaching out to the community can also help student athletes figure out who they are off the field, said Joshua Marriner, a former UConn football player currently competing on the track team. Marriner, an 8th-semester communications major, does service projects with his fraternity in addition to working with minority athletes at Project Uplift.

“They were able to actually build me as a man and teach me that I have other things going for myself besides athletics,” Marriner said. “It took me branching out to realize that I need to grow as more than just an athlete because one day athletics is going to be over for me and who am I going to be after that?”

Marriner said it’s also important to be a positive example for the next generation of kids who look up to the players they see on TV.

“Even if it’s not on the field, they need to know that they can make it in other ways in their life,” Marriner said.

Marquise Vann, a former UConn football player and 8th-semester urban and community studies major, said he views being a good role model as an obligation.

“The way I think about it is without someone being there to support me there is no way I would be at the University of Connecticut,” said Vann, who credits his grandmother with pushing him to succeed.

Written By Sofia Read

On Wednesday April 6, 2016, the Sport Management students, staff, and friends, had the unique opportunity to volunteer at the U.S. Women’s National Team game vs Colombia at Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in Hartford, Connecticut. Despite the rather colder weather conditions, there was a fantastic turnout to support the reigning World Cup Champions.

The volunteer opportunity was organized through The U.S. Soccer Federation and their analytics department. Our primary responsibility was to recruit fans to participate in a quick survey created by the Federation. The survey included basic questions related to demographics, the family or individuals’ fandom, and knowledge of U.S. Soccer product and services. Volunteers arrived approximately 2 hours before kick-off for a brief run down of duties and expectations. We all received U.S. Soccer Shirts featuring the new logo to wear during the game. From the time the gates opened to kick-off, we spread ourselves throughout the concourse to collect responses for the survey.

Although it was an unusually cold April evening, it was exciting and impressive to see so many passionate fans draped in red, white, & blue. In addition, many fans were openly supportive of the recent U.S. Women’s National Team wage discrimination lawsuit.

The team dominated on the attack and beat Colombia 7-0, scoring a speedy 4 goals in just 12 minutes. Crystal Dunn, Allie Long, Mallory Pugh, Carli Lloyd, Tobin Heath, and Christen Press all tallied impressive goals on the night. Colombia and The U.S. Women will meet again on April 10th, at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester, Pennsylvania.

This exciting volunteer opportunity allowed us to not only witness a great soccer game, but also gain experience in fan engagement and organizational practices. Overall, it was a rewarding experience that provided sport management students the ability to gain additional insight into the industry.

(Top, left to right): Michael Niegro (’16), Dylan Kartchner (’17), Matthew Bloomgarden (’17), Glynn Johnson (’18), Paul Wettemann (’18), Jaelin Johnson (’18). (Bottom, left to right): Angela Altamura (’16), Aaron Ryley (’17), Daniel Carrick (’18) and Christos Schwarz (’18)

Written By Christos Schwarz

After leaving the McCormack Future Industry Leaders Conference in February of 2015, I felt like I had taken a large first step towards my goal to become a sport professional. Even though I had been a member of the UConn Sport Business Association for a semester, and at the time was the newly elected Associate Vice President, I had only just started working in the Video Services division of UConn Athletics. While I had learned many pieces of advice from the various professionals that the SBA hosts as guest speakers, I hadn’t been able to use nearly any of it yet. I got a great opportunity that day to use what I had learned in my first experiential learning environment. I went on to tell other students I learned more that day about Sport Management than any other in my first year at UConn.

It was the second year of the McCormack Future Industry Leaders Conference, and I was excited to get back. Our group of ten students powered through an early wake up and arrived in Amherst at 8AM, excited to be greeted and welcomed into the Isenberg School of Management. There we were served breakfast, and took some time to get to know some of the other UConn students on the trip I didn’t previously know, as well as reconnect with some familiar faces from the year prior. The event began soon after with the keynote speaker, Ben Percia, who is the VP of Platform Development at Fenway Sport Management. He spoke about his path to where he is today, and being able to leave your comfort zone in order to reach new heights of your career. He mentioned how he felt slightly uncomfortable giving his first keynote address, but it’s an experience that he was glad to get and he hopes he will be asked to do again sometime in the future. Following the keynote, we were dismissed to our workshop groups.

This year, the conference had five segments; Event and Facility Management, Sport Finance, Sport Sales, Representation and Sport Marketing. I was in the Sales group, lead by Preetam Sen, a Director of Partnership Sales for Manchester City FC and City Football Group, and Ryan England, a Manager of Premium Partnerships for the New York Jets. For our workshop, we were grouped with students from other schools, and our task was to present as a New York sports team to the fictional Bank of Gotham on why they should become a corporate sponsor of ours. The sales professionals provided valuable feedback and advice to the groups as they presented, and even when they had constructive criticism they reminded us “it’s business, don’t ever take it personally.”

Once the workshops wrapped up, a networking hour began in the Isenberg Atrium. We continued to talk with professionals, and of course made sure we got good pictures in our business professional attire to update our LinkedIn profiles with. Afterwards, the final event of the program began, the ‘Young Guns’ panel. This year’s group featured professionals who work in the New York, Boston and Atlanta markets, and offered advice on how to stay up to date on the dealings in the industry, do’s and don’t’s of interviews, and advice for applying to jobs and internships. Following that, there was time to briefly network with a few more professionals, and then the day was done. Another successful McCormack Future Industry Leaders Conference was in the books, and I applaud UMass’ entire Sport Management community, especially the Committee’s Chair Nicholas Kaminski, on a job well done. I really hope to be able to continue to participate in this conference in the future.

Going to this event the past two years has inspired myself and other students to put on an event like this at UConn. While we are still in the planning stages, we now have a team in place and are confident we will be able to accomplish what our friends at UMass have been able to. They have been a great help to us so far, and I trust they will continue to be.