More than Muscle - A conversation about developing athletes off the field

[Disclaimer: The opinions in this episode are of my own accord and DO NOT reflect opinions of any respective organization or institution.]

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in an athletes' daily schedule? I have been curious about what collegiate and professional athletes are up to when they're not competing. I am grateful to be welcomed alongside Mary Long, a professional in sports within the inclusion and athlete development space.

Mary is the Coordinator for Success Through Well-Being at Columbia University Athletics in New York. Mary is responsible (but not limited to) developing Columbia athletes off the field to enhance their well-being and sense of belonging.

If you are inspired by this episode, please reach out to Mary on her LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marylong93/

I hope you enjoy the episode!

Please reach out if you have any questions or inquiries: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi everyone, my name is Nathan Merkel.
Welcome to the Ivory Tower podcast where we talk a little
bit about sport and society. What sport looks like within the
global context, what it looks like within the American
context, what we think about sport, how we experience sport,
why? How do we consume sport.
I really hope you enjoy the following episode and I hope you

(00:22):
will continue to listen down theroad.
Thanks. OK.
Hi, everyone. Thank you again for joining an
episode of Rebuilding the Ivory Tower podcast.
My name is Nathan Merkel, where we speak about sport in society

(00:42):
and how it sort of impacts individuals, how it impacts us,
how we consume sport differently.
I'm really excited about this episode today where I'm speaking
with Mary Long, a three-year professional within the
collegiate and pro sports environment, focusing on athlete
inclusion and development. Thanks, Nathan.

(01:05):
I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation today.
I guess just a brief intro aboutme.
I am a graduate from Columbia University.
I studied international and public affairs and specialized
in gender and public policy. And you might think that's a
very weird major going into sports, but what I really liked

(01:26):
about that was the advocacy piece of it.
And so I think that's why I've really been interested in
pursuing roles at the intersection of Sports and
Social impact. So just a couple of my
experiences, I've been able to intern with Voice and Sport,
which is a nonprofit that helps to elevate the voices of female

(01:47):
college athletes at the collegiate level and turned out
the WNBPA, being able to help advocate for the rights of
professional women basketball players.
And then spend some time at the University of Illinois, like you
said, working in the inclusion space, and that's an athlete
development space. So super excited to share
everything that I've learned over the past few years with you

(02:08):
and just have a good discussion.Yeah, it's awesome.
Wonderful. Thank you so much for some of
that information and that introduction.
I'm really curious if you could sort of paint us a picture of
what your current role is and what sort of responsibilities
you have within that, within that within that role.
Yeah. So I just transitioned into a
new role going into my 4th week now.

(02:29):
My official title is coordinatorof success through well-being
within Columbia University's athletics department.
And so that role is very administrative and student
facing. But I will be engaging with a
lot of different stakeholders such as the student athletes,
the administrators, a lot of ourcampus partners and just being
able to build those relationships so that I can

(02:51):
support our student athletes in their day-to-day activities.
I'll primarily be supporting them with their academics,
career and mental health and also being able to support like
student athletes sanity groups as well.
So this will be very new for me.But something that's also very
exciting in addition to this is my friend has started a

(03:12):
nonprofit called Win with Integrity, and it's the goal of
that is to make sports more accessible for the youth.
So he asked me to be a board member for that as well.
And so I'm really excited about that, being a board member and
just being able to help build a nonprofit like from the ground
up. What I really enjoy about that
is, you know, we envision being able to put on clinics for the

(03:36):
youth, being able to put on workshops that focus on social
emotional learning, being able to empower young girls to
continue to participate in sports and gain strong
leadership skills from that. Being able to fundraise some
money so that we can put on those clinics, but also offer
scholarships for those student athletes.
And also just, you know, having some equipment donation as well

(03:58):
so that the the young kids can have the tools that they need to
be able to actually play the sports that they want to play.
So I feel like that was a surprise for you, but I'm super
basically doing like both things.
That's great. Yeah.
I actually didn't know that. I'm, I'm really happy to hear
that you got involved with that.I'm, I'm curious, have you
always wanted to get involved with nonprofits or was this sort
of a spur in the moment sort of thing?

(04:21):
Or were you always wanting or passionate about participating
in nonprofit organizations? Yeah, I feel like I've always
been interested in participatingin nonprofit organizations just
because I feel like the work andthe mission that they have is to
really serve like the communities that really need it.

(04:41):
And I think that's where I find a lot of my purpose is being
able to make things more equitable for everyone else.
You know, we have a stat on our sheet that's like on average it
costs a family $800 a month for them to be able to afford having
their a kid participate in a sport.
And so it can get like really costly.
So I feel like that's what I really enjoy is how can we make

(05:02):
things more accessible for everyone to bridge the gap.
Especially I think my identity also plays a factor into this.
Being Asian American, we don't see a lot of representation in
sports. So it's like that's one barrier
for me is that identity piece. But then I know that there's
like financial barriers and stuff as well.
And so just kind of thinking about all these different

(05:23):
communities of people who might not have access to it.
But that's a beautiful thing about sports is that it really
does bring everyone together. It helps build identities,
builds communities. And so I think that's one area
that I I really love is sports in the nonprofit space.
Yeah. Is there anything that you're
working on with this nonprofit that's coming up in the
pipeline? Is there any sort of event or

(05:44):
initiative that you're working on?
Yeah, I have. So I just came on a couple weeks
ago, but today, right now actually, they have a webinar
for the importance of mental health and support.
But next week they're having an all day clinic.
And so the first portion of that, they are going to have a
panel just talking about, you know, empowering young women in

(06:05):
sports and then they're doing a flag football clinic as well.
So I think that's a really cool space to be in in the future.
It's just like the growth of flag football and also having
like young woman play that sport.
So those are some things that are coming up, but we also have
a lot of exciting things plannedout that might not be able to
share yet, but when the time comes, I'll let you know.

(06:28):
Yeah, that's great. That's wonderful that I'm very
happy to hear that for you. That's great.
Congratulations. I, I wanted to, to go back
revert a little bit. I know you said that this is
your 4th week into your new role, correct.
So I'm curious if you could sortof paint us a picture at your
previous role where you worked at University of Illinois where
I met you and sort of what you what you did at the University

(06:50):
of Illinois and how it sort of transitioned into the role that
you're at now. Yeah.
So the role at the University ofIllinois, my title was the
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Unbelonging Fellow.
But what I really liked about that was I got to work in the
DEIB space, but then also in thestudent athlete development
space. And I feel like that was really

(07:11):
good because there are a lot of intersections there.
So on the student athlete development side, you know, I
was able to eat a mentorship program that connected all of
our student athletes with formeralumni who were also student
athletes at the university. Being able to help, you know,
support like our fighting onlinenight, networking night, being
able to introduce them to like new employers, work on their

(07:32):
networking skills. It was also a lot of one-on-one
sessions where I got to learn a lot about the student athletes
and really help them identify their values, their passions and
work on their resume and you know, how to funnel those values
and passions into a goal. Being able to help them, you
know, build out their whole LinkedIn problem, LinkedIn
profile and get them ready for life after sport.

(07:54):
And then on the DEIB side, it's been really fun just being able
to be a liaison to our cultural centers.
You know, we have student athletes from all different
identities. So being able to, you know, work
with La Casa for our Latinx Heritage Month celebrations or
working with our Bruce Nesbitt African American Cultural Center

(08:15):
for our Black History Month celebrations.
And how can we highlight our student athletes?
Like those kind of initiatives have been really fun.
I've also been able to sit on the diversity and inclusion
committee. So there we've been able to kind
of activate the strategic priorities that our university
really focuses on. And so a lot of the work that I
do, I was the culture of the community and belonging crew.

(08:38):
And so we provided a lot of recommendations for the
recruitment and retention group.So thinking about, you know, how
can we make our hiring practicesmore equitable?
But then also once we hire them,how can we maintain them, but
then also make sure that we're building an inclusive space for
them. And then also with the education
subcommittee as well. So thinking about, you know, our

(08:58):
student athletes, all of our employees, what kind of
education do we want to give them to make sure that we all
have that shared responsibility of building inclusive and like
warm environment for everyone tobe in and to thrive in.
And so I think all of that has been really great.
Another favorite thing that I dois I get to advise one of our
student athlete affinity groups.So I advise the Line Eye Allies,

(09:21):
which is for LGBTQIA student athletes.
And that's just been great to create like a sense of community
and the lying for them. And so, you know, I had a really
great two years here at Illinois.
And so I'm just excited to be able to take everything that
I've learned into my role at Columbia.
You know, part of that role is being able to support student
athlete affinity groups. So I'm excited to do that.

(09:46):
The cool thing is when I was a student at Columbia, I started a
student athlete affinity group. So it'll be nice to go back and
see how I can support them now with like all of this knowledge
that I've gained. Yeah, that's wonderful.
That's really cool. Is there any sort of favorite
memory or favorite initiative that you're a part of when
you're working in Illinois? Yeah, that's really hard to

(10:12):
pick, but I would say one favorite initiative I did, this
was probably my first year in October, the MCA, they had a
diversity and inclusion social media campaign and the theme was
about allyship. So rather than just sticking to
social media, we wanted to create a whole event off of it.

(10:33):
And we thought it would be greatto do it with the affinity
groups because there are three different identity groups.
We have Empower for our student athletes of color.
Alina Allies are LGBTQIA studentathletes and then International
Illini for international studentathletes.
So it makes sense. So if we're talking about
allyship, you know, we're, we all have these different
identities. How can we be better allies for
one another? And so the program that I
created, it was like 2 parts. The first part was a Jeopardy

(10:57):
game because if you ever want toget seen athletes like engaged,
then you kind of have to make itcompetitive and make it a game.
So the categories would be like,you know, B&DIB stands for
belonging. And so it would have different
resource centers on campus and they would have to guess like
based off of the clue, like whatit is.
So it would be good for them to know.

(11:17):
You know, for international student athletes, we have the
International Student Scholar Services building.
If they have any questions, there's the Asian American
Cultural Center for our Asian American student athletes.
So that was like 1 category. I think another category was
like different definitions of like DEIB words that they should
know, like such as intersectionality, being able to

(11:39):
understand how all these different identities intersect
with one another. So we played that game.
It was really fun. And then I kind of like primed
their minds into thinking about like the topic that we were
going to discuss for the night. And then the second-half of
that, I had them think about their identities.
So, you know, what kind of marginalized identities do you
hold? But also what kind of privileged

(12:00):
identities do you hold? And also just thinking about how
does that differ from, you know,the perceptions of the
identities that you hold and howothers might perceive you?
And I think it was really cool because we all saw a commonality
of, you know, they all really hate being judged because on the
outside, like, people could tellthat they were athletes.

(12:20):
And so there would always be thestigma of like, oh, you don't
deserve to be here. You just got here because of
athletics, but you don't really care about academics.
And it was just, like, a lot of,like, negative remarks.
And so they realized that they all shared those common
feelings. And so the next part of that was
like, OK, knowing that, you know, even though we do have all
of these different identities, there are still some

(12:42):
commonalities that tie us together.
How can we better support one another in those areas?
And so they they made like commitments on how they can
support one another because theykind of shared stories of, you
know, their experiences, like for Illini allies, they kind of
said, you know, hey, even thoughI am part of the LGBTQIA

(13:02):
community, if you want to have apride night, it's it shouldn't
be on me. You could be a better ally by
speaking up to the coach and, you know, bringing that up or
for empower. You know, they kind of said,
well, if something happens to like a black celebrity, I'm not
the spokesperson to talk about it.
Like that's just not right. And so they kind of realized

(13:25):
that they unconsciously did all of these things to one another.
But you know, once they came to like the understanding of like
how that affected the other person and then sharing those
feelings of like negative remarks and stuff, I think they
understand the they understood the power of allyship and how
important it is to really upliftone another.

(13:45):
And so for me, I think that was like one of my favorite programs
to do because it goes beyond just like our normal shallow
conversations, but really, how can we be better individuals and
like be better teammates to one another?
Yeah, that's a wonderful answer.Thank you.
Thank you very much for sort of painting a picture of what, what
that favorite memory was and what, what you were involved in.

(14:06):
I'm curious, I, when I was listening to you speak, I, I
heard a very common word that kept coming up as you kept
saying community a lot. And I'm curious, is this sort of
like your, I would say, I guess bread and butter air quotes?
Like do you, do you focus mostlyon community building?
Is that sort of what you're heavily focused on?
Or is that more so like a personal passion area?

(14:29):
Yeah, I guess a little bit of both, just because I feel like
that kind of makes it feel like a sense of home.
You know, it's just having that community, having people, you
know, that can support you, end up with you.
Because I feel like having community when you're going
through really hard times is what's going to get you through
life. And I think maybe that's why I'm

(14:51):
so big on building community. And so, you know, when we talk
about the affinity groups you have, those are like minor
minoritized groups and like a large institution.
So to be able to build a community for them where they
feel like there's a safe space where they can be authentically
themselves and they don't have to hide who they are.
I think it's so important because that helps them be the

(15:12):
best that they can be. And even that even helps them
perform better athletically on the field or on the court is
when they feel like they can be their true self.
But then also community is also important because, you know, we
think about them competing as athletes.
You have fans who show up and support them and pour into them.
And for athletes, it's importantfor them to understand the

(15:34):
platforms that they have and allthese people who are pouring
into them, that it's also important to give it back to
their communities. And so that's why, you know, we
also try to facilitate a lot of community service outreach
opportunities, whether it's leading to elementary school
kids or tackling like food insecurity and building like
food bags for them with elementary schools as well.

(15:54):
I feel like it's like a two way St. of like, we're all in this
together and life is only going to be better if we work and
support one another. So yeah, I guess community is
like really important to me. Yeah, that that sort of leads me
into a another question when I was listening to you talk about
community and this sort of, you brought it up, this sort of

(16:16):
sense of belonging. I know within academics and
within research, a very famous or well known theory, which I'm
sure if you're very familiar with, is this theory of the
sense of belonging. And that it emphasizes that
humans have this inherent need to feel connected, accepted and
valued within a group or community.
And I'm curious if if you see this sort of theory that has

(16:39):
been used widely in research, doyou see this sort of theory play
out practically like day-to-day when you're doing your job and
when you're in the thick of it with these athletes?
Yeah, it's funny because you're reading like Yonics research in
the belonging and it talks aboutall these barriers.
You know, when you don't have that, you do feel isolated, you

(17:02):
feel alone. And I think you do see that a
lot, I guess, like in our everyday lives because
especially like with the freshmen, when they're
transitioning, it's very scary because you're off to a new
place on your own. You don't have your parents,
your community. You don't know really how to
navigate this new college life where you have a lot more

(17:22):
independence. And so, you know, some of them,
they do like heavily rely on their teammates, but it can also
be very challenging because theydo spend so much time with their
teammates as well that if they're not there, that might
crumble. So I feel like, you know, every
student athlete is different, but I think I think that's like

(17:47):
one good thing about having thatteam is that you have a built in
community already where you feellike you belong because you have
that short commonality of the sport that you do.
But again, I think that's why the, you know, athlete
development piece is also so important into understanding who
you are outside of an athlete sothat you can find other pockets
where you might be interested inother pockets of like where you

(18:08):
might belong, so that you aren'tjust leaning on one community.
Yeah, yeah, it's great. That leads us right and
cohesively right into my, my next question that I have for
you is I'm coming from a sort ofoutsiders, somewhat semi
outsiders perspective. I was with underneath doctor
Jana Kluke to begin my first semester and I, I sort of got

(18:31):
introduced to the area of DEI and athlete development.
And I, I helped teach TA the sport and development course
that talks a lot about athlete development and sport
development. But I'm curious if you could
sort of define or paint us a picture of or a grassroots
understanding of what athlete development is and sort of help

(18:51):
me understand or help the listeners you know, understand
or paint a picture of what athlete development is.
Yeah. I guess just to keep it simple,
it's the holistic growth of an individual.
And so, you know, obviously we think about when they compete,
that's them growing athletically.
But then at the end of the day, like, that comes to a stop.

(19:14):
So we have to think about, you know, who are they as
individuals? And so being able to, like I
said, talk about help them identify, you know, their
values, things that they're passionate about so that we can
get them thinking about like a career, thinking about, you
know, teaching them strategies to become more resilient, to
become stronger with their mental health.

(19:35):
And so it's really just being able to build them and build up
their potential into being like the best human that they can
possibly be so that, you know, when they do transition out of
their sport, they're ready to take on, you know, what's coming
next. They have the strategies to
overcome like the challenges that they'll face, but it's just
really helping them. I guess I gain more exposure to

(19:59):
all of these different areas 'cause we talked about, you
know, well-being. And so that's like spiritual
health, that's like social health, financial health,
vocational. I I think there's like. 7 or 12
different like pillars of being,you know, but just making sure
that they understand how to takecare of themselves and all of
these different aspects like when it comes to nutrition, when

(20:20):
it comes to their social relationships, all of these
different things that affect their lives outside of the
sport. It's really important that we
empower them to, you know, take charge of that and help them
become adults because this is such a formative time of their
life, so. Yeah, I totally agree.
I will connect, connect a littlebit to my previous experience.

(20:40):
I, I mentioned this before I started recording, but I was, I
did compete for one, one year atthe NAIA level, which obviously
is nowhere near the, the D1 level, but I still competed for
a year playing soccer at Ottawa University.
And when you're, you're talking about athlete development, I've,
I vividly remember thinking backto my time and how I sort of got

(21:02):
engrossed and the identity of, of athlete or the identity of
soccer player and thinking of what athlete development is.
I feel like it would be extremely or would have been
extremely beneficial just at at all levels to have sort of
someone there to sort of help meunderstand as a young, like you
said earlier, freshman coming in, I'm 18, you know, I'm

(21:26):
pursuing this sort of athletic dream, but you know, other than
soccer and sports, like I'm alsoa human.
Like, I need to figure out how to socially, you know,
cohesively understand society outside of sport.
And I struggled with that a lot during my first year playing.
And after I got injured, I transferred away.

(21:48):
And I struggled with that even more because I relied so heavily
on that sort of identity of I amathlete, like sort of I am group
sort of, you know, the Guardiansof the Galaxy.
You know, I am soccer, soccer's me kind of thing.
And I of course, sort of went through a couple of years like
of an identity crisis because I didn't really know it was always

(22:08):
soccer sport first athletes likeworkout regimens, all this
stuff. And then I had this sort of free
time or I had something else andI was like, well, what do I do?
I don't, I don't know what what like I was never really taught
or coached into any of this stuff.
And, and I'm sure that's what a lot of athletes experience and
go through. And so that sort of leans into

(22:30):
the next question. I'm curious like your personal
opinion, like why is athlete development important in your
personal and professional opinion?
Yeah, I have a comment and I wasalso going to ask you this.
But I guess it's so important because it really helps student
athletes, I think, like find their voice and find out how to
use their voice and figure out like, who they are.

(22:53):
Because I guess when I think about it, when I talk to these
student athletes, they've been competing at such a young age
and everything has been decided for them.
You know, this is a practice uniform you're going to wear
today. This is like the food you're
going to eat. So I feel like they have no
sense of agency in their lives. And so the idea of like athlete
development is so important is because they're learning to

(23:15):
become like who they are outsideof their sport.
They're learning how to become leaders.
They're just learning how to become people who can like,
learn how to advocate for themselves.
And I think that's really important because, you know,
they are young adults and we need to start treating them like
young adults. So yeah, I wanted to ask you
that, you know, when you were competing at the collegiate

(23:35):
level for your first year and did you feel like you had no
sense of agency because everything was decided for you?
I think I did struggle with thata lot.
I think if you would have asked me this when I was 18, I would
have, you know, probably denied and been like, oh, yeah, I'm
totally fine, I'm cool. You know, I would have been OK.
But now that I'm older and mature and I understand how

(23:55):
young and naive I was like pursuing athlete athletics and
sports. And I feel like I deeply yearned
for that sort of agency because I think I unconsciously
struggled with who I was outsideof sport and I viewed myself as
athlete first. And now that the subsequent

(24:17):
years of after I transferred away, I took, I took that, that
identity away and I was like, whoa, who am I?
Who am I now? Like what, what, what do I like?
I don't have sport anymore. What do I do?
Do I, do I do I party all day? Do I do I do academics all day?
Do I, I don't know what, what doI, I had no idea.

(24:37):
And I really struggled with that.
And I think having someone there, you know, like someone in
your role, sort of help me understand that, you know,
sport, obviously, sure, sport can be life, but there's also
life outside of sport. And it's not, you know, not all
as extremely important as one orone athlete places on

(24:58):
themselves. And I think it's, it's very
beneficial and crucial that athletes understand that you're
also human and you have interests and hobbies and you
have these sort of, you know, identities that you mentioned
that, you know, need to be talked about.
And I think it's very beneficialto just communicate these
things. But I, I will say when I was

(25:19):
younger, I, I would probably would have denied and rejected
all these things just because I think, you know, as a young 18
year old, you know, athletic scholarship, like, yeah, I'm
sport first. That's me.
I'm sport, this sport that athletics first.
And I think it was really hard for my young immature sort of

(25:40):
athlete first brain to sort of comprehend these things.
And it would like I said, it would have been nice to have an
outside perspective, a professional coming in saying,
hey, it's not always this. There's always there's things
outside of that. And that was a wonderful
question. Thank you for asking that.
And that sort of leans me into my next question.
I'm curious if you could sort ofpaint, paint us a picture of

(26:01):
what your daily schedule or yourdaily life looks like.
We could head on maybe more Illinois since that's where you
were the longest and since you're currently working virtual
at Columbia. So at at Illinois, what was sort
of the day in the life? What did that look like for you?
Every day was different. Honestly, I think the one

(26:22):
constant might be just my meetings with student athletes.
You know, sometimes they would just pop in and ask for some
help with maybe their resume or their LinkedIn.
But then that would also just strike up some conversations
about how they're doing in life and how I can support them.
But every day would be differentjust because there's so many
things going on. But I guess the thing about

(26:44):
college athletics is that it's cyclical.
So, you know, around August, like we'll have our welcome back
orientation programs. We know that we're gonna go into
our networking nights. I have to start my mentorship
program. So every day looks different
depending on like the time of the year, but I think a lot of
it would be just meeting people and having those meetings of

(27:06):
what do we want this program or this event or initiative to look
like and just kind of building it out.
I think that's one thing I probably spent a lot of time
doing at Illinois is building relationships because I think
what some things that people don't realize is how important
getting that buy in is and nurturing those relationships.
You know, when I first got to Illinois, I met with all of the

(27:29):
directors of the cultural housesand I asked them, you know, what
was the relationship with athletics been like?
How can we collaborate and bringyou all more into our space?
And so from there, we've had a lot of cool initiatives, like
for the Asian American Cultural Center.
We've never celebrated Lunar NewYear before at an athletic
competition. So, you know, nurturing that
relationship and bringing them into our space.

(27:51):
They tabled and we had, we were able to get, you know, a lot of
cool, like little snacks and treats to share with our fans
that came into those games. Like this is what Lunar New
Year's about. These are the countries that
celebrate it. So giving them like a piece of
that, but then also during the games, being able to highlight
our student athletes who do celebrate Lunar New Year.

(28:11):
But being able to have those meetings where you build those
relationships with all of these people.
You also get more buy in into the things that you do.
And so I think that's also why Ispend a lot of time in those
meetings with student athletes, being able to understand who
they are more kind of like what they're interested in and
building those relationships with them so that when an
opportunity comes around, I'm like, hey, you know, I think you

(28:32):
would be interested in this. It's something that you want to
do. And they're like, yes, because
they trust me. So I think like a cool moment of
that. There was one student athlete
that I had. He's a men's gymnast.
He would come into my office pretty often because he really
wanted to get an internship, buthe didn't know what he wanted to
do. So we would work on, you know,
the LinkedIn, his resume, but I would also just spend time

(28:54):
getting to know him. And we had a micro internship
with Eli Lilly that was coming up.
And I was just like, hey, I think you would be really good
for this because you're interested in doing sales.
This is kind of like a precursorfor you to understand if this is
more of like the space that you want to be in.
So it worked with his schedule because it was only for a month

(29:14):
long. But then after he did that, he
was like, oh, this is like superhelpful.
I think I actually want to go into consulting and stuff.
And so I feel like every time that I tell him, you know, hey,
you should join my mentorship program, you should do this.
He just trusts me and he does itand he gets a lot out of it.
So yeah, a lot, I guess, like myday-to-day is just really
relationship building and helping to get that buy in from,

(29:37):
you know, coaches to be on boardwith the programs that we're
doing. Getting some athletes to trust
the work that we're doing and see the value in it.
Because, you know, a lot of themmight want to go pro.
So they have to start thinking about other options, thinking
about our campus partners. And you know, we don't want to
be siloed just because we're in athletic department.
So how can we bring them into our space but also bring our
athletes into their spaces as well because you don't want them

(29:59):
to stay in this bubble. So I don't know if that really
answers your question, but I guess like a lot of it is like
relationship building and just having meetings and like just
executing I guess. Yeah, that's great.
It's sort of actually one thing you said specifically.
Got me really curious. You said that to get buy in from
coaches. I'm curious, like in your

(30:19):
day-to-day, do you see pushback from coaches based off of some
of the initiatives that you wantto do?
I think I've been fortunate where I haven't gotten a lot of
pushback in terms of the initiatives that I specifically
wanted to do. And I think some of that I was

(30:40):
like very intentional about being visible like in my first
year. So we have like a sport liaison
model because there's 500 athletes at the University of
Illinois and, you know, I can't service all of them.
So we would split them up in ourstudent athlete development
team. And so I would have like
volleyball, mental illness, gymnastics, golf and stuff.

(31:01):
But for the teams that I did have, I would show up to those
practices and make sure that I was visible, introducing myself
to student athletes that were there, to the coaches and just,
you know, built that relationship.
And so I feel like that really helped because I think one thing
that I wanted to do was for Women's History Month and I
wanted to work with all of the teams and kind of do different

(31:24):
videos that would touch on, you know, the importance of being
able to highlight like, women athletes.
And so that like, for coaches and students, you know, they
didn't have to participate in that.
But me sending an e-mail to the coaches, they're like, oh, yeah,
we would love to talk about, youknow, what's the best thing that
my female athlete coach has taught me or like, what advice
would I tell my younger self? And so I think about that

(31:48):
relationship, you know, they're more welcoming and inviting me
into like, their practices. They're like, yeah, come by,
stop by anytime. And it's just like, whatever
initiative that I want to do, they find a way to, like, make
it work with me. So I feel like I was very
privileged in that sense. Yeah, that sounds great.
I was really curious when you said that.
But it also reminds me back to another thing you mentioned.

(32:08):
Did you said college sports is cyclical?
And we know that, you know that the university schedule is from
August to December, January to May.
I'm curious, what does summer, what does summer look like for
you in these upcoming summer months?
If you could, because you could paint me a picture of what that
sort of look like looks like. Yeah.
I mean, I guess a typical academic year is August to May,

(32:30):
but it doesn't end. I think we know.
Yeah, we're. Those are heavy planning periods
for the year, but for us, we have RST 118, which is a
transition to a college course. And so for our major transfers
who come in during the January like spring semester, they've
had one semester here, but we have an orientation program for

(32:52):
them that kind of introduces them to the resources they have
on campus and helps them, you know, identify where they can
go. Like we have, we have guest
speakers like people from the Career Center or the leadership
center to talk about, you know, what kind of leader are you
thinking about a career helping them work on like a SWOT
analysis and stuff. So they have that orientation

(33:14):
program during the summer, but then we also have a lot of
experiential learning opportunities that we get to
take some of our students to. So one that just recently ended
was the Black Student Athletes Summit.
This time it was in Chicago, butwe took six of our student
athletes up there and it's a three to four day experience
just full of, you know, student athletes and professionals who

(33:36):
are, you know, obviously black, but they get to learn about
different workshops or topics that are very specific to their
identity. I think one of the topics that
they had was just, you know, being able to navigate the
workspace when it comes to like your hair type and things like
that, just kind of showing them how to be their authentic

(33:57):
selves. Like in the workspace, they get
to learn about, you know, DEIV legislation, how that's
affecting them. Also like pro day, being able to
learn from a lot of industry experts.
And so that's like a really coolsummit.
There's also the athlete activism Summit that we take our
students to. And so I went on this last year,

(34:17):
but it's another, I believe like2 to three day trip that's put
on by Athlete Ally, which is a nonprofit organization that
works to end like homophobia andtransphobia like within sports.
So I learned so much about, you know, people that are part of
that community and just hearing like their stories and for me

(34:38):
being able to understand how I can support them better, that
was just like a life changing experience.
But another one that I really liked was I think another
privilege that we have is being part of the Big 10 conference.
And so they have a couple of unique experiences for our
students to do. 1 of it was the Big Life Selma to Montgomery
trip. So we took a couple of student

(34:58):
athletes to Alabama, where they learned about the US Civil
Rights Movement. They they got to hear from
speakers that fought alongside Rosa Parks and Martin Luther
King Junior. We visited museums that, you
know, touched on like the Atlantic slave trade and
everything. We did a community service
project building book bags to give back to the community.

(35:21):
And it was just really good for them to be able to learn about,
you know, their history, their culture.
And I think for us, it's really important because there's so
much to learn outside of the classroom.
And so to take them to these experiential learning
opportunities where they get to learn and experience and live
it, it's just like really cool. And I think that helps give you
like a higher return on interest.

(35:42):
For example, we had a football student athlete who went on the
summer trip. He came back and he's now like a
SAC member. And then he wanted to go on the
Blackson Athlete Summit trip, sohe wanted to go.
But I think it's like what I'm talking about earlier, it's like
you show them these experiences and they really see the value in
it and it makes them more involved with all the things
that we have going on. So some of them have become like

(36:04):
empowered leaders. They've been part of SAG and
they're just like doing a lot more because they really value,
you know, everything that we have to offer them that really
nurtures their holistic growth outside of their athletic
identity. Yeah, that's that's wonderful.
It really reminds me of my time when I first, before I started
my PHDI went to the NCAA Inclusion forum with Doctor Jana

(36:29):
Cluke. And shout out, Solomon, Solomon
Siskind, Kevin Gillooly as well.I'm pretty sure you were in
attendance. Were you at that one in it?
Yeah, as well. And so there's a couple of other
students from Illinois that werethere as well.
It was really cool to sort of open my eyes cause where I,

(36:51):
where I'm coming from and where I came from just within sport
management and things of that nature and just athletics.
I, I sort of never really understood or was introduced to
the behind the scenes work of athlete development and sort of
how individuals or departments sort of actually develop

(37:13):
athletes to begin with. And it was really cool to go to
this inclusion forum and hear from all of these voices.
And, you know, at that inclusionforum, it was the first time I
actually realized there is a international athlete on stage
talking about where is. This was last year was after the
NIL bill passed. And he was like, yeah, actually

(37:35):
I'm an advocate right now. I'm AD 1 college, you know,
basketball player, but my visa disallows me from doing any NIL
work because it violates the visa or the visa agreements and
he can't work basically like airquotes work with NIL and can't
make any money off of that. And he's trying to, I forgot his

(37:58):
name and where he played basketball at, but that really
stuck with me. And, you know, all of these
interesting perspectives and, you know, identities and
interactions and things that go into sport that I sort of was, I
guess ignorant to before I, I showed up or just wasn't really,
I guess introduced to the program that I went to.

(38:20):
Really, we really didn't talk about athlete development.
It was more, I guess, business focused and it was more so how
do you drive revenue through sport.
But I really do see the importance of understanding how
to develop athletes. And it's really, really cool to
hear your perception and hear your experiences, which sort of
transitions us into a small little halftime here.

(38:42):
And so we'll take maybe about a 5 to 10 second break and we'll
sort of come back from this break and talk a little bit more
about your specific experience and sort of your personal
perception and consumption of sports.
We'll be right back in a couple seconds.

(39:14):
OK, Thanks everyone. Welcome back from the short
little halftime. I hope everybody enjoyed the
first half where Mary and I talked about her current role,
role at Columbia, her previous role at Illinois, what
specifically is athlete development, why it's important
and sort of a look into her daily life, what that what, what

(39:38):
that sort of was, what the dailyschedule was.
And I'm really excited about this, this business.
Can I make a comment to your previous comment?
Yeah, of course. Like, I actually really like
what you said, you know, just talking about a lot of like
sport management majors. I think that's why I wish more
people knew about this because Ithink for me, I'm not about

(40:00):
generating revenue or anything. And so you don't know what you
don't know. I didn't know that sports and
some athlete development existeduntil like I was in it.
But I think it's so important because like you said, when
you're talking about the international student athlete.
People are really against like the idea of DEI, but then you
think about it like if we're thinking about like the E and

(40:23):
DIB, it's like equity, you know,and talking about how can we
make things more equitable if we're thinking about like NIL
for student athletes, but international student athletes
can't get that or knowing that, you know, some of their
identities, some of them are like first generation student
athletes. They've never navigated the
college spaces before. How can we meet them where they
are and make sure that we're closing those gaps for them?

(40:43):
I think, you know, I think you mentioned earlier, there's like
500,000 scene athletes in the NCAA and it's like they all come
from like such different backgrounds.
And it's so important to really honor their identities, but also
make sure that we're making things like equitable for all of
them. And so I wish there was an
emphasis on, you know, sports, social impact and like soon
after development more so than the business side of things.

(41:05):
Yeah. And what's really interesting, I
think, I think a lot of this is my personal opinion.
I think a lot of business programs fail to understand,
even though there is a positive impact or a beneficial sort of
direction or perception looking at specific revenues and things

(41:28):
like that. But in order to drive said
revenues, individuals or fans or, you know, athletes need to
be intrigued. They need to achieve this sort
of sense of belonging. They need to have some sort of
societal or sociological well-being or cohesion in order

(41:48):
for that revenue to take place. Because in my mind, in my, my
previous experience with sport, like I got the first episode, I
spoke with my dad about how the Rams left in 2015.
And now I feel no sense of belonging to the NFLI, feel no
loyalty. I feel no community towards the
NFL. And so now in a business

(42:10):
perspective, that is a failure. And that's also a failure on the
sociological perspective. But how do you sort of rebuild
that? How, how do you rebuild that
sort of sense of belonging? How do you sort of approach
these sociological things that impact business perspectives and
sort of drive revenue? And I think that's one thing
that business programs failed tothink about is the underlining

(42:32):
meaning behind the revenue and behind why people buy a ticket.
Is it because they love the sport or is it because they love
the people and they love the fact that they have this sort of
sense of belonging that you're talking about?
Within. Athlete development.
Yeah. And I think it goes like both
ways. If you want to drive revenue,
it's yes, you are doing the athlete development side.

(42:55):
And I think that's why we talk about, you know, identity
building and being able to let them know who they are outside
of their sport. Because then for the audience,
it's that storytelling that the media should be doing that
really makes us feel connected with those athletes.
Because I feel like, you know, I'm a big fan of women's sports.
And I feel like I don't know if you watched the Unrivaled this

(43:15):
past season, but it was just like a more personal glimpse
inside of, you know, the athletes that we're watching,
Being able to see one of them learn how to cook for the first
time and she's just kind of a disaster in the kitchen or
seeing like their jokes and their personalities of who they
are off the court. That's I feel like that's what
makes me get invested. And I'm like cheering for them,
knowing that some of them struggle with mental health

(43:37):
issues. And I'm just like, OK, I can
relate to that, you know, and then just being vulnerable.
So I feel like applaud to the athletes who, you know,
understand, like the power of their voice and they use it and
they, you know, talk about thosethings.
And then it's also like for the audience to be able to connect
with it. And I think that can really help
drive a lot of revenue or just growth in a lot of professional

(43:59):
leagues as if, you know, how to accurately, like tell these
stories of the the different people that you're trying to
make profit off of, you know. Yeah.
Yeah, I really agree. I think that's one of the, one
of the things that the sport management or this, the SM
degree or discipline, I think needs to sort of get a, get a
hold on. There's a lot of, I think
there's a lot of debate. I spoke about this in a previous

(44:22):
episode of where to place this sport management degree and this
sport management discipline. And I feel like a lot of
individuals want to place it in business because they see the
business implications. But as we're we're sort of
hitting on is there's a lot of things behind the scenes that
won't drive revenue If you know you're if the job that you do

(44:42):
doesn't exist like that, that wouldn't, it wouldn't help
individuals feel this cohesive, this social cohesion.
It wouldn't help individuals feel a sense of belonging and
like even within like a group offans, like for a pro team, if
they don't feel this sort of sense of cohesion or belonging
like that revenue will go away. It it it doesn't, it's not going

(45:05):
to help just to sort of sell, sell to people.
You have to understand what sport does to people and why.
And I think that's one thing that needs to be talked about.
I think in all with within everySM major, and I just would also
say within every major, just because I think it's very
important to understand how justcommunities and societies as a

(45:28):
as a whole become sort of like Dr. communities and become
together and create this sort ofsense of belonging with one
another. I know we got a little bit we
snowballed a little bit and got off topic, but I was I really
loved that topic. That was awesome.
I want to go back to a little bit on your pro, the pros and

(45:49):
cons of working in college sports.
And I'm curious if you could sort of paint a picture of, you
know, what sort of positive, negative working in the
collegiate sport at atmosphere. Yeah, I would say a big pro for
me is knowing that I'm able to help positively impact the lives
of the student athletes. I think it's such a great

(46:11):
feeling when you see that aha moment go off for them of like,
oh, you know, I can do that or Ihave the skills to do that.
Because, you know, small example, a lot of them don't
think that they have a lot of skills that are transferable in
the workplace. But we talked about, you know,
you have strong time management skills because you're juggling
like practice, film, competition, academics, all of

(46:34):
that. You have great like teamwork
skills because you're on a team.So you have a lot of like
communication, cultural competency skills, things like
that. But then also just helping them
identify different paths that they could pursue.
So helping them like have that aha moment is really good.
And then I think just also we keep going back to this, but

(46:54):
helping them do other things outside of sport.
I had a woman's tennis player who, the very first day I met
her, she's just like, I'm going to go pro, I'm going to go pro.
She didn't want to participate in any of the activities that we
did. But for the Woman's History
Month, I collaborated with the Woman's Resources Center and I
feel like this is like another one of my favorite events.

(47:14):
But we bring them into that space, and we just have a very
vulnerable conversation. And this year, it was about, you
know, how to maximize yourself because too often women feel the
need to minimize who they are tomake others feel comfortable.
They feel like they can't take up space in the workplace or in
their lives. And so this session was like,
you know, let's have an open discussion on it.
Let's talk about strategies you can use to really empower

(47:36):
yourself to really, you know, have the confidence to take up
space. So I asked that one tennis
player to be a discussion leaderfor it and kind of talk about
her experience, and she was like, that didn't feel like an
hour and a half at all. I had such a great time.
I really liked it. And just doing that.
She brought in a freshman, too. And I think the freshman will
come in the next year. But it's just connecting those

(47:59):
moments for them. Like This is why it's so
important. I think that's like my biggest
joy and being able to build those relationships.
Last year, one of my student athletes, she was graduating.
She there was like a speech about adverse adversity.
And she said, you know, I went through so much adversity this

(48:20):
year. But every time I stepped into
your office, I knew that I wouldbe OK.
And that just touched my heart. So I think like the biggest Pro
is being able to really watch these young people grow into who
they are, into the leaders, justfinding out, you know, who they
are, what they want to do, what they want to be in life.
And also just wanted to share that moment with you and knowing

(48:42):
that you had a part in it. So just being able to have that
positive impact. I think it's just like a huge
pro for me. And for me, something that's
really important in my work is finding something that's
fulfilling and meaningful. So I feel like this is perfect
for it. I would say like on the Comm
side, you, you don't always get people who understand like the

(49:02):
value of like what you're doing,you know, so sometimes like
student athletes who do just want to go pro or whatever, it's
a lot more like pulling teeth and trying to get them on board.
But I think that's fine because it's like, OK, like I have a
challenge now, like I got to work and nurture this
relationship. And then also just with the
future of or I guess like just college athletics in general,

(49:26):
the landscape is always changing.
So that's, that's like pro and con because then it's, it's good
because you got to stay on your toes.
You got to, you know, be proactive, think about what's
coming next and how you can prepare for that.
But then it's also just like, ifyou think about like our current
situation right now, it's like alittle bit scary with what's
going on. And then I would say, I don't

(49:48):
know if this is like taboo, but a big con for me is just the pay
in college athletics. I feel like they're thinking to
misconception, oh, you work in sports, you make so much money,
but that's really not the case. Not unless you're like a coach
or an AD. You know, us being in our
student support roles, you really don't make the law.

(50:08):
And it's tough. But I think that's why you have
to think about the why and what you do.
And for me, my why is a student athletes and that's what keeps
me going. So it kind of like makes sense
for it. Yeah, yeah.
That that reminds me of a, a famous quote that drives the
passion that I have for working in sport.
It was, it was if you love what you do, you'll never work a day
in your life. And I think I remember my first,

(50:30):
my very first job, It's really funny.
My very first job in sport was an athletic specialist for the
city of Memphis. And I I actually did the math.
My salary for the city of Memphis is almost the exact same
or it just slightly less than what I'm getting as a PhD

(50:53):
student for my stipend. And it's like it's, it's really
funny to me because I feel like a lot of I know we're getting a
little off track, but I love this topic of there's this sort
of perception. You know, you work in sport,
you're probably making a bunch, a bunch of money, but you know,
unfortunately that it's usually long hours and low pay.

(51:13):
But the impact and this sort of connectedness, this sort of
community building that you havein my mind substitutes and pays
for that tenfold. And a lot of the relationships I
made when I worked in that job Idid in Memphis, you know, I
didn't care that I wasn't makinga ton of money because I, I

(51:34):
helped build sport within the community Memphis.
And, you know, much like you're doing or did in Illinois and
what now we'll be doing at Columbia, you're sort of
building this community that, you know, it's just one of those
things. But, you know, as time goes on,
I'm sure things will change. And I'm hoping that more
notoriety will come to individuals that sort of, I

(51:54):
guess air quotes work in the trenches of sport, you know,
behind the scenes of sort of, you know, building these
athletes, building sport, developing, developing the
athletes themselves. And I'm curious, that sort of
transitions me into a very curious question for you is now
that you've worked in in the industry that you've worked in
and had the experiences that you've had, I'm curious in your

(52:16):
personal opinion, do you think your perception of sports has
changed? Do you think the way that you
consume sport or sports has changed?
Do you think it's stayed the same?
Do you view it in a different light?
I'm just curious what your thought is.
Yeah, I guess being in the trenches and just being
surrounded by sports so much, it's definitely changed.

(52:40):
I think I I guess like before, I've only competed at the high
school level. And so I, you know, obviously
did a lot of other things outside of sports.
But speaking with these studentsand athletes, you hear about how
that was all they did growing up.
And so I guess that helps me understand like why sports, it's

(53:03):
like their whole identity and who they are because they spend
so much time into that. And so I think that makes me
feel like a little bit more empathetic, you know, when I try
to ask them to do all of these things.
And you know, it is like hard for them because they do spend a
lot of time with all of these different activities, like
related to their sports. But I think it also makes me

(53:24):
more invested in it. I think knowing like, I guess
like having a better understanding of sports,
understanding like non revenue generating sports versus like
revenue generating sports. I just like it makes me want to
go support, you know, the non revenue generating sports more.
Just being able to build those connections with those athletes.

(53:46):
Like, you know, gymnastics, for example, I'm like, this is such
an amazing skill to have and I feel like I never really got
into it before, but now buildingthose relationships, I'm like so
into it. But then also, I think in doing
my research, I, so I started a student athlete affinity group
at Columbia and it was like voice and sport.

(54:06):
And so for the first session, you know, I kind of talked to my
student athletes and pushed themlike, hey, thinking about, you
know, the systems that you're in, just because this is what
you're used to doesn't mean thatit's always equal or fair.
So we did like a cahoot of sticking statistics.
So, you know, there were things about like, you know, how much
media coverage does do women athletes get even though they

(54:27):
make it half of the population, that's only like 3%.
Or like, what is the gender pay gap between, you know, Diana
Trosi, the most highly paid WNBAplayer compared to Rocky the
mascot. He was making like 600,000 as
opposed to like 200,000. I think doing my research and
learning more about all of thosethings, about how there's a huge

(54:48):
inequity within like female, male sports, I think has made me
like even more invested into being a better fan for women's
sports. And so, you know, showing up to
their games, making sure to share, you know, when they do
have events going on, being ableto buy their merch where they're
geared to help support them. I feel like just having a better

(55:09):
understanding of all the nuanceswithin like professional and
collegiate sports. I try to be a better fan in that
sense just because they do go through a lot and it's so hard
being in the public eye and going through a lot of scrutiny
that I feel like I have to be a nice fan and just like a good
person to support them. That's a very round about

(55:31):
answer. Oh, that's great.
Yeah. I love hearing your, your, your,
like experience and your perception.
I'm curious, like, is there evera time that you're watching
something on television or things of that nature like and
you think to yourself like you have a thought to your head, oh,
I think this way because of the job I do or the things I do.

(55:51):
Does that understand what I'm asking?
I feel like there's times where I'm watching a sport and I'm
like, oh, like the the psychology of fans are doing
blah, blah, blah. And I like it.
It changes the way that I think of it, like through the research
that I'm doing, the things I'm interested in, I now think of
watching sport. Oh well, why is this group of
fans protesting? You know, that would be a cool

(56:12):
research idea instead of just appreciating the game.
And so I'm curious, does that ever occurred or happened when
you're watching sport? Yeah, I think something cool
that we do at Illinois, we have the I Matter campaign and this
is to combat like social media harassment for our student
athletes. I think especially with the rise
of sports betting, you see a lotof more negativity and just ugly

(56:34):
comments online towards the athletes.
And so I feel like, you know, being a big fan of like, you
know, the WNBA per SE, or even just like any sports, you see so
much negativity and back slash and it's just like you guys are
terrible people. I, I think this is like the
controversial thought take is like the shit talking.

(56:55):
That's like a part of the sportsculture.
But then for me, like these are humans at the end of the day,
because I see some of those hatecomments like towards my student
athletes and I'm like, this is like, this is like a part of
like what they do. But you do realize that they are
human at the end of the day, youknow, be careful with what
you're saying, just because someof the threats were just like
terrible. And I think the other day I saw

(57:17):
the WNBA released them No Place for Hate kind of campaign.
And I was like, OK, cool, that'ssimilar to, you know, what we
have with the I Matter campaign.But then well, like some of the
games, you're still hearing someracist comments.
So it's just like, how are you guys going to to hold the fans
like more accountable, you know,and so one of the things that we
try to do in the I matter campaign is to provide more

(57:37):
education to our fans. It's like this is what social
media stability looks like. And just like, you know, being
respectful online, being able toshare more of our athletes
stories so that it humanizes ourathletes for them so that they
don't they don't feel that they shouldn't then, you know, say
all these bad things about them.So like things like that have

(57:58):
kind of impacted the way that I see sports.
And I'm like, oh, this is like areally cool initiative that we
do. What do they have at the pro
level or vice versa? You know, if it's at the pro,
can we bring it to college athletics?
Yeah, it's really interesting. 11 sort of thought I had that
popped in my head is when you'reseeing a lot of fan hate and
things of that nature. It was really interesting that

(58:19):
I, I thought of, I don't know why I thought of this, but like
it'd be interesting to see like the individuals that I guess
sort of air quote keyboard warriors that sort of hide
behind, you know, the keyboard and social media.
They'll say everything they wantthrough Adm.
But it's like if, if you flip iton its head and be like, boy, if
that same individual was workingat a job and they missed a
deadline, like like an individual misses a free throw

(58:42):
and they, you know, say, oh, yousuck in their DMS, Like what if
the same person missed a deadline and someone DM them and
said you're terrible at your jobor whatever and things like
that. And I'm sure I'm very positive.
I would argue that they would probably not appreciate that,
you know, they probably wouldn'tbe happy that they're taking
their, you know, receiving this sort of hate.

(59:02):
And so I think what is wild to me is I feel like people think
it's OK to just yell profanitiesbecause it's sport, you know,
they're athletes, you know, whatever.
But at the end of the day, like,what if, what if we DM Ed you
and you missed a deadline and wesaid, you know, we DM Ed you and
said you are terrible, like, youknow, things like that.

(59:22):
And I think it's just those things that people don't think
about that, you know, again, like, they're human at the end
of the day, Like nobody's perfect, like constantly.
Yeah, having empathy is so important, you know, and so I
think that's also something thatwe try to teach our students.
And I think a big part of that is perspective taking, you know,

(59:43):
being able to understand your teammates perspective even
though you might not like, but you know, what's that phrase
like? Take a step into their shoes.
Or walk a mile on their shoes. Walk a mile on their shoes.
Yeah. You know, So, yeah, I think
building empathy is so important.
And I feel like sports can do that.
And I think, again, This is why,you know, that sense of

(01:00:05):
belonging in community building is so important because I feel
like if you have people who are supporting you, who are pouring
their love into you, you don't have a low self esteem.
You don't feel the need to, you know, project onto.
These athletes and say all thesenegative things like if you are
filled with love, you're you're gonna like project love out, you
know. So I think that's why it's so

(01:00:26):
important to to build those communities.
Yeah, yeah, I really agree. I really, really enjoyed the
conversation. This sort of ends on my final
question. I'm curious like what, what
future dreams are future goals that you have, maybe you know,
you aspired, you aspire to continue to work in college
sports or do you have a sort of ambitious goal?

(01:00:47):
I'm curious what's your what plans you have or or anything of
that of that nature? I don't really want to stick
with college sports. There's a lot of cool social
impact projects that I really want to be a part of.
For example, the Adidas BreakingBarriers campaign.
Are you familiar with that? I'm not, actually, no.

(01:01:08):
So speaking barriers. So the focus here is like
working with young girls, they're going to do research on
like, you know, what are barriers that prevent them from
participating in sports. And then they'll develop, you
know, programs and solutions to help reduce those barriers.
And so I guess that's like kind of a combination of like what
you're doing is, you know, conducting the research on like,
you know, what prevents specificathletes to participate in

(01:01:30):
sports or like, how do they feelabout things?
And then what can we do to make sports more accessible or like
more better for that person? So they have a lot of workshops
and they have like a lot of coolinitiatives to help build up
their capacity of like leaders doing a lot of like empowerment,
you know, raising self esteem kind of things.
So I think that's like somethingI really want to do because I

(01:01:52):
like a job where I can be creative.
And so being able to think aboutwhat are fun or cool ways where
we can teach these things to these young athletes.
And I think also with my degree in international public affairs,
you think about there's like refugee athletes as well.
You know, it's really hard when you get displaced, but sports is
really important because it can help you have a sense of

(01:02:14):
community when you're not in your home.
And so I guess like my goal is to work with these like athletes
of different types, not just like professional collegiate
athletes, but anybody can be an athlete.
Just thinking about that. How can we use sports to, you
know, better their lives? I guess it's simple way to put
it. That's that's what I really want
to do. Yeah, that sounds cool.

(01:02:35):
Do you think you may want to transition to the nonprofit
sector and work with the nonprofit that you just got
elected to the board? Is is that another sort of I
guess Ave. or or thought? Yeah, I think for sure that's
definitely the one Ave. So I think that's why I might
want to go more in the nonprofitspace and then definitely work,
you know, being on the board forthis nonprofit.
I think it will help me understand if this is something

(01:02:57):
that I truly want to do, but also give me the experience to,
you know, do what I actually want to do.
I think another route is also potentially sports diplomacy.
I think that's also interesting as well of like, how can we use
sports to bridge, you know, relations with different
countries, build that community and like cross cultural

(01:03:19):
understanding. So I feel like that's a good
thing about me going to Columbia's.
I'll be in New York and there's a lot of different pathways.
If I for some reason, you know, wanted to stick with college
athletics for a couple more years or doing professional
sports, there's a lot of professional leads over there, a
lot of nonprofits. You know, the Women's Sports
Foundation is over there. But then the UN headquarters is

(01:03:41):
also there too if I didn't want to do sports diplomacy.
So I feel like I have a lot of options.
Yeah, it's really cool. 11 random incident that popped in
my head when you talked about sport diplomacy.
I, I, this is my, my personal take, my personal opinion, but
I, I do believe that sport is inherently political and in, in

(01:04:02):
and of itself. Like when you think of the Four
Nations tournament that just happened, the hockey tournament
that occurred a while back and during one of the games, I think
it was between the US and Canada.
They're both both anthems were played because there's a team,
there's Canada playing the US and US individuals or fans booed

(01:04:23):
the Canadian anthem and then Canadian fans booed the US
anthem solely because of the current governmental relations
between the US and Canada. And so it's really interesting
when you think of sports and howlike you're saying this sort of
diplomatic sort of approach to sport.
It is very political and I thinkit it is very politically

(01:04:45):
charged. And it's really interesting to
see how individuals use sport asthis sort of like landscape or
sort of platform for diplomacy and that they do things through
sport and then sport then produces things in the in the
back end. And it's really interesting to
think about those things. But yeah, I really enjoyed our

(01:05:08):
conversation today. I I learned a ton about athlete
development. I'm really happy that you took
the time out of your schedule tospeak with me.
I'm really grateful that, you know, you sort of influenced my
my thought on athlete development and you you helped
me understand a more holistic understanding of what athlete
development really is. And I really loved hearing your

(01:05:28):
experiences and your perspectives.
So I really appreciate your timeand I really hope everyone else
enjoyed the episode. So thank you very much for
joining and thanks again for your time.
I really hope you enjoyed the conversation too.
So. Yeah, thank you for having me on
and letting me share, you know, my insights and experiences.
I really enjoy talking with you of.
Course thank you very much. Hope everyone enjoyed the

(01:05:49):
episode.