Tag: sports

Two BSBA graduates will be honored for their skills in the classroom and in sports this month. Katie Chandler and J.J. Tomlin are recipients of the 2017 Outstanding Student Athlete Award. These two graduates have exhibited strong leadership ability and sportsman-like conduct in their respective sports of soccer and football.

Kathryn Lane Chandler

Katie, majored in marketing with a minor in psychology, and has been a leader on the Bears Women’s Soccer Team for four years. As captain, she led the team to the Division III National Championship for the first time in school history this year.

Katie, a forward, won the NCAA Championship “Most Outstanding Offensive Player”.

She started all 24 games in her final season and recorded a team-high 12 goals and four assists for 28 points. She was named UAA Offensive Athlete of the Week four times in her final season.

Katie concludes her college soccer career ranked second in school history in game-winning goals (16) and seventh in goals (37) and points (87).

Katie was also named to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America Division III All-America Team this year.

John James Tomlin    

J.J. majored in marketing with a minor in the business of sports. He is a three-time all-University Athletic Association and two-time all-Southern Athletic Association honoree, he concluded his career as the most decorated quarterback in school history with school records in completion percentages,  completions, passing attempts, passing yards, total offense, and TDs – 83, if you’re counting.

Off the field, J.J. is WashU’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee president, and also serves as vice president of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He has been active with the Special Olympics, food drives, shoe drives and various service projects in the area.

Photos: James Byard / WUSTL Photos

Sports, much like business, represent a global entity. No matter the sport, the values created and embedded on the court, mat, and field don’t just lie within the lines. How can the drive and passion for sports carry over to society, where individuals can enhance business organizations and their own enterprises with their background in sportsmanship? In turn, how do sports shape society? The 2017 Leadership Perspectives series continued by discussing these topics and more at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center at Olin.

The St. Louis Business Journal’s Senior Reporter, Brian Feldt, moderated the forum. The panelists included Solomon Alexander, Foundation Director, St. Louis Sports Commission; Drew Caylor, Partner, Louis York Capital & EMBA Alumnus; Khalia Collier, Owner/General Manager, St. Louis Surge Women’s Basketball; Tim Hayden, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Stadia Ventures; and Greg Waldbaum, CEO, 3D Lacrosse & Olin Alumnus.

Each of the panelists brought a unique perspective on the contribution of sports, with commentary on topics ranging from the value of trophies in kids’ sports leagues to the recruiting of high school and professional athletes. One attendee brought her high school-aged son to learn from the panel’s experiences. Waldbaum pointed out that “grades and more grades” are most important in college scouting, emphasizing the importance of success in the classroom as well as in competition. However, he specified that colleges contact high school coaches quite frequently to find out how players perform as a team player and how they lead and show good sportsmanship. Much like academics, sports play a key role in opening up opportunities for getting into a reach school.

On the impact of sports on leadership, Collier noted, “96 percent of women at the executive level attribute their success to sports.” The St. Louis Surge players not only serve as All-American NCAA athletes, but also as role models and mentors, fostering the next generation of leaders. Caylor, who spent several of his early post-college years in the NFL as a center, is a prime example of how sports values also carry over to a business career. Caylor realized that although his true passion and talents lie more within the financial industry, he still balanced the technical skills necessary for the investment sector with the team and collaborative-based skills learned on the field.

In a similar vein, Hayden brought up a fun fact: “Junior Bridgeman is the second-wealthiest athlete”—not holistically due to athletic achievements, but due to entrepreneurship in using his sports salary to buy and invest in franchises both in and out of the sports world. Hayden and Waldbaum both agreed on how experiencing the reality of either a ‘W’ or a ‘L’ in sports educates a former athlete on how to rebound after a failure as an entrepreneur and problem solve when it comes to adapting strategies for business.

In addition to skills for the job market, perhaps the most applicable takeaway of the session, and of sport itself, is learning invaluable life lessons on how to be a teammate and an emphatic human being. Collier underscored that much more than stats contribute to an athlete’s success—character, she said, speaks volumes.

As the forum ended, Solomon Alexander said, to a round of applause, that the best translation of sportsmanship to society is “treating each other like a fellow human being in the most respectful way.”

When Marketplace asked Patrick Rishe about the potential of advertising brand-fatigue among NBA sports fans, Olin’s director of the sports business program, said, “No.”

Even with the NBA Developmental League re-branding next season as the “G” League after Gatorade bought the naming rights?

Even after the NBA lets teams sell advertising space on the upper-left corner of player’s jerseys next season?

“Rishe… doesn’t think people are going to tire of branding anytime soon,”according to the Marketplace story. “I am not concerned about the over saturation,” he said. “And I think though some purists may say that they are, let’s see how they feel two or three years from now. I doubt they’ll raise a fuss then. The sports consumer will adapt.”

Link to Marketplace story.

Students in Patrick Rishe’s Sports Analytics course have welcomed a non-stop parade of sports experts to class over the past few weeks. From baseball to football to basketball, speakers have represented may of the top teams in professional sports. Check out the experts in action in the classroom in the gallery below.

Patrick Rishe is the director of Olin’s Sports Business Program. This semester’s guest speaker list has included:

• Brett Broich, LAFC Director of Analytics
• Jay Riola, Director of Business Strategy for the Orlando Magic
• Russ Scibetti, Vice President at KORE Software Strategies
• Mike Girsch, Assistant General Manager of the St. Louis Cardinals
• Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, Manager of Football R&D for the San Francisco 49ers

CNBC turned to Olin’s Patrick Rishe this morning for his take on two big sports stories in the news. Rishe, Director of the Business of Sports Program at Olin, says Twitter’s deal with the NFL to live stream games is a good play to attract a younger audience.

As for the Atlantic Coast Conference’s (ACC) announcement Wednesday to relocate all neutral-site championships from North Carolina just two days after the NCAA announced it will pull all 2017 championships from the state to protest the HB2 “bathroom” law, Rishe predicted the state will lose $125 million – $175 million in 2017 due to lost sports-tourism spending.

In July, the NBA announced its decision to relocate its 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte due to the law that bars transgender people from using government building restrooms in accordance with their gender identities.

In his column on Forbes.com, Rishe identifies four areas the state will likely lose out based on the NBA and NCAA’s decisions to pull out of the state:

• Loss of new spending by non-North Carolina residents (coming to the state for sports events)
• Leakage of spending by North Carolina residents (going to other states to see sports events)
• Loss of new spending by non-local organizations (event-related expenditures)
• Loss of local spending through the multiplier effect (money injected into the NC economy gets spent at local businesses who then spend money at other local businesses)

Link to CNBC video.

From the pre-Rio ban on Russian athletes to the Ryan Lochte apology for his bad behavior that overshadowed the final days of the 2016 Olympic Summer Games, Olin’s Director of the Business of Sports program has been in the spotlight sharing his expertise with the media. Here are a few of the highlights of Rishe’s commentaries on the Rio Olympics this summer.

FOX BUSINESS: Ryan Lochte’s Costly Mistake

NBC NEWS: Ryan Lochte Apologizes

FORBES: Horrific pre-Olympics press dooms Brazil’s economic returns from hosting 2016 summer games

MONEY.CNN: Olympic sports apparel wars

GLOBAL INTERESTS: Russian Athletes Banned