Sports Symposium

Registration is required. Please click HERE to register for the symposium.

Sponsored by:

School of Leadership and Development
Access Sports 

Event Information:

Date: Saturday, March 9, 2013
Time: 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
Location: McInnis Auditorium
                Eastern University
                1300 Eagle Road
                St. Davids, PA 19087  (Click HERE for directions) 

Registration is required. Please click HERE to register.

Sports Symposium 2013:
“Sports and Entrepreneurship”

Synopsis

It is common knowledge that professional sports is a business. The amalgamation of profit, advertising, media, marketing, and consumer products, sports have moved from being an act of leisure to big entertainment businesses. Even amateur athletics are hardly immune to the influence of business enterprise on sports with the onset of pseudo-professional athletes sponsored by cereal companies and the like. Social Entrepreneurship has entered into the pure profit world as a countercultural movement promoting social cause and environmental care while making a profit in an attempt to improve the social world and conditions around the people it works.

A unique development across the globe in the past decade has seen the rise of social entrepreneurship ventures that use sports as the doorway for community care and social change, providing a vehicle to counteract the domination of sports by pure corporate interests. Moreover, many ventures are partnering with philanthropic professional and college sports teams through fundraising, exposure, volunteerism, and social responsibility.

This symposium will bring together academics, sports management leaders, non-profit workers, local community advocates, and social entrepreneurs to discuss avenues that have been successful in this fusion between sports, business, and social causes. We are interested in learning how both theoretically and practically the power of sports is used in redeeming communities and launching micro-enterprises, education programs, community development initiatives and the like amongst impoverished communities in America and around the world. The discussion will expose both academic and popular understandings of theory and practice in this most important and emerging trend in the sports realm.

Over the past twenty years, Alyson Harris has worked in the nonprofit sector to help provide inclusive experiences and activities for individuals with disabilities and at-risk youth.  The founder of Access Sports (2002), a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia that provides memorable sports experiences for special needs and at-risk groups, her organization has provided over 65,000 tickets and special opportunities to the disenfranchised in the Delaware Valley. Partnering with major league, minor league and collegiate level sports teams has enabled Access Sports to achieve its mission on a daily basis of filling seats and fulfilling dreams.  Prior to founding Access Sports, she provided direct care and therapeutic recreational activities at the Devereux Foundation and RecCare, LLC to individuals with a wide range of disabilities, including Traumatic Brain Injury, psychiatric and developmental disorders.  Alyson serves on several nonprofit committees: founding board member for Global Abilities; Temple University Therapeutic Recreation Advisory Committee; and the Recreation Committee for the Mayor’s Commission for People with Disabilities She has created several fundraising special events for other nonprofits, in addition to her own. Recent awards include being honored at the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association dinner 2010 and being recognized as one of the “Super Women” by Suburban Life Magazine. Alyson has an MS degree in Nonprofit Management from Eastern University.

Jim Britt, Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation

Jim Britt is the Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, starting with the Foundation as its first employee in May 2005. Prior to his present position, Jim managed hockey and facility operations as the Hockey Director and General Manager of the Flyers Skate Zone in Northeast Philadelphia. He is a retired U.S. Postal Inspector, serving over 25 years throughout the United States in a variety of criminal investigative, security and internal audit assignments.   A Philadelphia native, Jim competed in several youth, scholastic and collegiate sports, and in 1971 was honored as a Scholar-Athlete by the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Jim has coached baseball, crew and ice hockey in Massachusetts and in the Philadelphia area, working with youth clubs and high schools.  He was part of the hockey staff at Holy Ghost Prep in Bensalem, PA for 9 years, including the 2003 AA Flyers Cup Champions. Jim is dedicated to mentoring and “growing the game”, and is very active with USA Hockey on the local and national level. He has been a member of the Atlantic District Coaching Education staff for 16 years and worked as the Assistant Festival Director of the National Select 14 Camp in Rochester for 5 years. In 1997, Jim attained the Level 4-Advanced Level Coaching certificate from USA Hockey.  He is a mentor and partner in the National Hockey League’s Hockey is For Everyone initiatives. In 2004, Jim was honored by the City of Philadelphia with the Brighter Futures Award. In recognition of his service to USA Hockey and the Atlantic District, he was honored as the 2007 Coach of the Year. In June 2008, Jim was honored with the Layman Award from the Philadelphia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance. In October, 2010, Jim was honored with the John Neumann Award from the Alumni Association of Neumann University. Jim serves on the Neumann University Business and Sport Management Advisory Councils, and is an active participant in Neumann’s Mentorship program. He also serves on the Advisory Council for Neumann’s Institute for Sport, Spirituality and Character Development, and on the Advisory Board of the Philadelphia Children’s Foundation.  Jim holds a baccalaureate degree in Sociology/Criminal Justice from LaSalle University and a Masters of Science degree in Sport Management from Neumann University.

Hans Tokke, Eastern University

Prof. Hans Tokke currently serves as the Program Director and Professor of the Non Profit Management program in the Campolo College of Graduate and Professional Studies at Eastern University. A first generation Estonian refugee kid born in Sweden, he immigrated to Canada as a young child and retains his Swedish citizenship as a permanent resident of Canada, teaching in the United States. He brings over 25 years experience in teaching and practice in the non-profit sector. He served in Vancouver as a director of urban ministries and programs with Campus Crusade for Christ, Here’s Life Inner City, and The Alder Foundation focusing on inner city youth and children at risk. He worked in New York City with Here’s Life Inner City, where he served in various capacities reaching people in the largest metropolitan area in the United States. He taught sociology, pluralism, diversity and culture at The State University of New York (Rockland), The City University of New York (CityTech) and Thomas Edison State College and community development, social justice, and urban ministry at Nyack College and Alliance Theological Seminary. He is returning to his roots in the non-profit sector at Eastern University, teaching topics from public policy to marketing and advocacy and is excited about challenging people to reach out to those in need. He is a Ph.D. Candidate in sociology at The New School For Social Research with a previous MA in sociology. His scholarly work is centered on urban sociology and the sociology of culture. His dissertation focuses on community building interaction rituals in American high school varsity football fandom. He has an MDiv. in theology and religion from Alliance Theological Seminary and an M.P.S. in urban ministry & community development from Nyack College. His research work focuses on the intersections of race, suburban culture, and high school varsity football as indicators of ritual and civil religion. His professional service and associations include serving as Red Cross International Post 9-11 Disaster Response, Ground Zero Chaplain, producing “Snapshots From A City” Urban Dinner Theater tour for Here’s Life Inner City and Keynote Communications, and founder director of KidStreet Inner City Youth Outreach and Vancouver Urban Team as a staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ International.  He is an ordained minister with The Christian and Missionary Alliance & The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and a member of The American Sociological Association, Academy of Management, and The North American Association for The Sociology of Sport.

Ed Hastings, Neumann University

Dr. Hastings is the Director of the Neumann University Institute of Sports and Spirituality.
Nathan Martin, Timoteo Football
Timoteo officially began in the spring of 2005.  The idea for Timoteo was inspired by II Timothy 2:1 which states “You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”  Timoteo was created to reach out in love with the Gospel to the many male youth of the Kensington community through football.  The leadership team placed Christian men who are actively involved in a local church on the teams as coaches to be examples and father figures to the youth.  The coaches would then spend quality time investing in the youth, talking and building relationships with them and leading them in informal, interactive Bible studies.  Timoteo was not created to drag kids into a church building but rather to serve them, spend time with them, hang out, and provide the gospel in their context, while doing something that they love to do – play football.

Seren Fryatt, Life and Change Experienced thru Sports (L.A.C.E.S.)

Seren Frost is the founder and executive director of L.A.C.E.S. In 2006, while on location in West Africa for a medical mission, Seren had the opportunity to play professional soccer in Monrovia, Liberia. At this time Liberia had just come to the end of a brutal, 14-year civil war that had torn apart the social fabric of the country. Through the relationships she built with fellow teammates, Seren realized the impact sports can have in providing an avenue for restoration. Over the past five years, in partnership with local Liberian staff, L.A.C.E.S. has built a successful sports development model that empowers communities, parents, and churches to cultivate positive role models and provides them with the tools to make lasting change. Seren has worked in International Development for the last 6 years primarily in Liberia, West Africa