A large body of research has established that sport intervention programs can have social, emotional and health benefits for at-risk youth. While research has focused on the positive outcomes associated with these programs, little attention has been given to program inputs. It is recognized that community partnerships can help intervention programs achieve their goals. Yet, how are such partnerships formed and what can help to promote the successful formation of partnerships? This paper provides a detailed account of the partnership implementation process undertaken to develop and deliver a health promotion physical activity program for at-risk youth through the medium of CrossFit in a low socioeconomic area in a rural community in the southeastern United States. Developing successful partnerships serves as a valuable component to help organizations obtain resources and skills needed to initiate and continue programs for underserved populations. The scholars identify and explain how critical success factors such as personal contact, partnership complementarity and fit and the promotion of high levels of commitment and trust, serve as important starting points for developing and maintaining strong community partnerships.

Following the racist comments of the then CEO and CrossFit co-founder Greg Glassman concerning the murder of George Floyd, CrossFit affiliates took to social media to repudiate his statements. Throughout their social media posts, these affiliates struggled with their relationship to the CrossFit brand, the imagined CrossFit community, and the community formed in their local box. Using qualitative thematic analysis of CrossFit affiliates’ Facebook and Instagram posts made during June 2020, we find that the affiliates had a range of responses that included silence, reconsideration of their affiliate status, and social activism. Furthermore, we find that the affiliates’ focus on (re)defining community served to deflect from deeper discussions of systemic racism within CrossFit and the CrossFit community.

(2020). Blurring the Lines for Personal Success: Career, Family, and Voluntary Activities of Women in Academic Sport Settings. Women's Studies. Ahead of Print.

This exploratory study investigated both the challenges that sport management student leaders faced when planning and managing a course-based event and the skills they developed from their experiences. The case used for this study was the Emeritus Memorial Golf Tournament and Auction, a recurring student-led event at Georgia Southern University. Seven student leaders (five formal leaders and two informal leaders) from these courses were interviewed following event completion, with Kolb’s experiential learning theory employed as a lens of inquiry. The study focuses primarily on experiential learning from a Facility and Event Management course with a scaffolded assignment structure, whose students organized and operated a golf tournament and auction. Study findings revealed a dynamic relationship between the challenges that student leaders faced and the competencies that they developed. Through the scaffolded assignments and event-management experiences, students acknowledged an ability to learn from the challenges they encountered, developing their communication, event-planning, strategic-management, and problem-solving skills. Findings suggest that student leaders’ development of management-related skills was most influenced by the fourth and fifth tenets of experiential learning theory.

Academic journals continue to produce articles that highlight record levels of student disengagement and lack of motivation. Faculty have been encouraged to use high impact, active learning strategies to increase student engagement and success (Patrick et al., 2016). One technique, service learning, allows students to become active learners through applying learned skills and theory from the classroom to community settings (Connolly, et al., 2017). The purpose of this study was to highlight students’ perceptions and experiences through three semester-long service-learning courses where students provided a fitness and mindfulness program to local teachers to help them address stressors. Undergraduate sports management students enrolled in a service-learning course for sport development were tasked with planning, organizing, implementing, and evaluating three 9-week long programs. Students were given increased responsibility and control over the semester which resulted in real-world experiences. The students gave their perceptions and experiences in an end of semester paper. Three independent coders reviewed the papers using thematic analysis. Emergent themes were consistent with the service-learning literature suggesting increased engagement, sense of purpose, and applying knowledge. The service-learning course proved to have a positive impact on the sport management students and produced high levels of engagement. Sport management faculty could implement service-learning courses to increase student engagement and opportunities to apply theories, skills, and knowledge in real-world settings. Sport management courses should further explore using high impact, active learning environments to increase student engagement and enhance student learning outcomes.