Since I was a young girl, the phrase my angel mother most often gently invoked in her counsel to me was, "enjoy the journey." She recognized my impatience and unquenchable thirst for growth, adrenaline, and justice far before I did. I suppose it's no wonder how my path unfolded. I graduated high school at 16, hurdled and heptathaloned my way through a Bachelors and Masters (on the track team at the University of Utah) by 21, and then chose to pursue a Ph.D. in order to tackle my paralyzing fear of public speaking and train for the Olympic Trials.

 

For the past several decades, I've had opportunities to grow personally as I've studied the intersection of higher education and intercollegiate athletics--a uniquely American union frought with deep institutional issues and life-changing opportunities for education. I've been surrounded by incredible students and colleagues who have worked with me to tackle gaps in our knowledge, navigate challenging organizational complexities, build educational pathways, and empower students and industry employees to utilize critical data literacy to confront systemic injustice. 

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My hope for the future is the "dumb jock" stereotype will no longer exist, that the organizational structures within intercollegiate athletics and higher education are in line with the values they purport, that women's sport has equal media coverage to men, that there are equal percentages of black athletic directors and head coaches as there are athletes on the field, and there are educational pathways to study the art and science of sport specifically (just like music, dance, theatre, or computer science), and expertise development generally in schools throughout the world.