Department of Sport, Event, and Tourism Management holds first Sport Leadership Summit

The collegiate and professional sport world stretches far beyond what happens on the field or court. General managers, coaches, data analytics professionals, recruiters, and many others work behind the scenes to make a sporting event possible.

Last month’s Sport Leadership Summit at Williams Stadium, hosted by Liberty University’s Department of Sport, Event, and Tourism Management in the School of Business, and sponsored by the Center for Research and Scholarship, brought in industry professionals from numerous areas to give students a glimpse into some of these behind-the-scenes career paths.

The two-day summit included panels on women in sports, sports media, minor league sports, Collegiate Athletic Administrators, faith in sports, collegiate assistant coaches, and more. Liberty men’s basketball Head Coach Ritchie McKay and the director of University of Virginia’s Accelerated Master’s Degree Program, Professor William Scherer, delivered the keynote addresses.

Fourteen poster research presentations by students dotted the third floor of Williams Stadium, displaying their findings on a variety of topics, including the psychological and mental effects of bad weather in outdoor sports, Tour de France data analytics, and spectators’ perception of service quality of concessions at college basketball games.

Sport management student and safety for Liberty’s football team Javon Scruggs said the Sports Leadership Summit was an important event for anyone delving into the world of sports.

Scruggs, alongside classmates Chris Barrett and Johnathan Graham, headed a poster presentation titled “Parent-Coach-Player Relationship: Positive and Negative Effects.”

“For me, this is a very big event, because eventually I want to be a coach,” said Scruggs. “This program and this event have a lot of GMs, coaches, boosters, and all types of things that surround the sports world. This event right here is very beneficial to me in pursuing my career.”

Josh Smith, a sport management graduate student, examined the outcomes of bye week sequencing for Division I college football teams.

“These findings are important because they can give a competitive edge to coaches,” said Smith, who pulled history and data from Power Five schools. “We can use this knowledge to give to our coaches, and they can figure out how they want to coordinate their schedules to plan their bye weeks to optimize the best winning percentages.”

“Especially in the world of college athletics, wins matter,” he added. “Wins lead to bowl games, bowl games lead to more money and attention. The best front porch for a school is its sports and athletics. So, if a school’s sports teams are doing really well, it gives positive PR to the school and brings in more people to your school.”

Dr. Laura Hatfield, chair of the Department of Sport, Event, and Tourism Management, said the research projects helped students understand the value of data-based decision making.

“We are in an era now where we are able to collect data, process it, and use to make decisions,” she said. “And that helps us make more efficient and affective decisions within the context of our organizations.”

She said the success of the first Sports Leadership Summit will pave the way for future conferences.

“We felt like our first Sport Leadership Summit went really well. We had a great turnout of students, we had engaging speakers, two keynote addresses, and 14 research presentations. So, we are very pleased with how it went, and look forward to building on the positive momentum to make this an annual event.”