Recreation, Sport, and Tourism | Page 14 | College of Applied Health Sciences

Alumni Spotlight—Alex Dam

May 20, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Alex Dam, who got his degree in 2017 in Recreation, Sport, and Tourism with a focus on Sport and a Minor in Communications and who is now a Associate Manager Content Strategy at NBC Sports.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: I picked AHS due to my interest in the RST program. Recreation, Sport, and Tourism is one of the largest growing industries in the world today and I just knew I wanted to be a part of it. I had a concentration on Sport and really enjoyed both learning and experiencing how much sport brought people together and helped improve quality of life. Sport brought me closer to my loved ones and has helped me create lifelong friendships and when I figured out, I could study this field, I knew I had to take advantage of this opportunity.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: Although no longer with the University of Illinois, both Dr. Nuno Ribeiro and LoriKay Paden left a great impact on me during my time at Illinois. Both would walk into class with all the energy in the world, whether it was a 9 a.m. RST 330 (Programming) course or a post-lunch 2 p.m. RST 410 (Administration of Leisure Services) course. Both helped me develop academically in the classroom and professionally outside of it. I have maintained contact with both and have enjoyed seeing them on their journeys as well as sharing mine.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: The course I enjoyed the most was RST 484! A combination of real work experience and finally seeing all your course work pay off was very special. The culmination of my four years at Illinois combined with the start of my professional career made this course truly special. During my internship, I was able to meet and develop friendships with other RST in my program that I did not have the chance to meet on campus and this helped expand my AHS network.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I did not enter AHS knowing my career path. This was scary to admit and one that I think many students also worry about. AHS helped me decide my career path by developing a curriculum that exposes their students to professional settings. The practicum/internship allowed me to determine what I did/did not want in a career and that is very important. It helped me mold my ideal career without me knowing it at the time.

Q:Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: My AHS experience did lead me to my current job. The internship I pursued during my final semester at Illinois allowed me to secure my first full-time job at ESPN (Format Analyst), which in turn led me to my current role at NBC Sports (Associate Manager Content Strategy).

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience

A: My favorite on-campus experience is developing lifelong friendships with fellow students and eating at all the awesome restaurants on campus. I love food, so being within walking distance of Green Street was awesome! Those relationships continue today, and I am glad to see where everyone has come since all our RST classes together. It makes me proud to see that we all were able to do something we love and make a career out of it!

Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?

A: I would say take the leap of faith. I too was looking at more prominent majors before I decided to pursue something I loved. You need to understand the industry you are going to takes a lot of relationship-building, persistence, and being able to take rejection/feedback positively. However, AHS will prepare you for all these things and definitely do not hesitate to reach out to peers and alumni like myself. We are all here to help! RST is also a multibillion-dollar industry and is growing every single day. Especially at times like this when we are told to stay indoors without sports, we realize how much we miss going out to our state parks, visiting other countries, and cheering on our favorite teams.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: Alex Dam, alumni, Alumni Spotlight

A Few Minutes With … Toni Liechty

March 06, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

*Toni Liechty (Photo by Brian Stauffer)*

Vince Lara speaks with Toni Liechty, an associate professor in the department of Recreation Sport and Tourism to talk about her research on why people get involved in fitness programs, what keeps them involved, and how life stage and body image impact that involvement.

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois’s College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara and today I’m speaking with Toni Liechty, an associate professor in the Department of Recreation Sport and Tourism, to talk about her research on why people get involved in fitness programs, what keeps them involved, and how life stage and body image impact that involvement.

All right. Sitting with Toni Liechty. Toni, thank you for being on the podcast. I really appreciate it. You know, commonly, when I meet with faculty, I ask them about their inspirations for their research. Because usually, there’s something that inspired you to look at what you study. And so for you, how did you get interested in your line of study?

TONI LIECHTY: So, I think maybe I might be a little different than some folks. I never had any interest in doing research or becoming a professor at all. In my field, in recreation sport and tourism, a lot of people go into the profession. And it’s not as common to go into research. And I thought that’s what I was going to do.

I used to work at a summer camp that was a sport and fitness camp. Which means that a lot of parents sent their kids there because they wanted them to lose weight. And while I was there, I in some ways saw that it was an amazing place for kids to come. I heard some kids say things like, I feel really comfortable at camp because I don’t feel like I’m going to get bullied because of my weight and things like that.

At the same time, I saw some things that were really problematic. You know, kids would share stories of how they would lose five pounds over the weekend and these sort of unhealthy weight loss issues. Another thing that I heard that kind of broke my heart was, I still remember a camper telling me that she said, I love swimming. It’s one of my favorite things to do. But I only swim at camp because at home, I don’t want to be the fat kid in the pool. And it kind of broke my heart that she would have something that she loved to do that would be good for her, but her body image made it so that she felt that she couldn’t do that.

And then I started to hear it more often, people saying, well, I like to play tennis. But I won’t play tennis because people will be looking at me if I were a little short skirt. Or even in other sports like soccer or basketball, I don’t want to run up and down the field and have people looking at my body.

And I thought initially, this was a thing that made sense at this weight loss camp. But when I came home and I decided to do a master’s degree, I started to notice it very commonly. Other people who I wouldn’t think of as having a weight issue still felt uncomfortable about their body.

And I think part of the reason that I really wanted to do a master’s degree was because, as a professional, I looked for information about how to improve our camp, how to make it better, how to address these body image issues in the setting. And I couldn’t find the information that I wanted. I didn’t feel like there was enough in terms of understanding of management of camps and sport facilities and so on. I didn’t feel like there was enough information about addressing body image issues specifically.

So that’s why I decided I was going to go back to school and study this. And I thought I was going to go back to school and study it so that I could come back to the camp and do a better job. But I kind of got hooked on the whole research thing and it went from there.

VINCE LARA: So you never really wanted to teach or anything. But the research part of it kind of sucked you in, I guess.

TONI LIECHTY: Especially in terms of how I viewed that it could make a difference in the professional world and how it could help to sort of make people’s lives better in a very noticeable way or direct way.

VINCE LARA: You know, some of your research looks at why people get into fitness programs and what keeps them there. And I’m interested, what led to that line of research?

TONI LIECHTY: Well, so when I started looking at body image, there’s a lot of research that says that people start out– that having a poor body image might encourage someone to start a fitness program. But it generally doesn’t lead to long term participation. Because if your motivation is just to look good and you start doing something physically active, it’s very unlikely you’re going to see results immediately. And if your only motivation was to see a physical result in terms of your appearance, then that result doesn’t happen so you stop doing the activity.

So I wanted to start to understand what else encourages people to be active, how can we get away from just the appearance factor, help to address different types of motivations that will keep people participating longer.

There’s also a lot of research saying that body image doesn’t lead to the most healthy behaviors. So if I’m trying to lose weight because of the way I look, I’m more likely to do sort of unhealthy dieting, excessive exercise, things that are going to just be focused on the way that I look.

Whereas if I’m motivated by my general health, I want to feel good, I want to interact with my friends, I want to get outdoors, things like that, I’m more likely to engage in healthy behaviors. So the idea is trying to shift people’s motivation and their reasons for physical activity away from the appearance focus and toward other types of things.

VINCE LARA: I’m curious if you ever are asked to consult with, let’s say, Planet Fitness or any of these other sorts of chains that pop up.

TONI LIECHTY: There’s a tension there.

VINCE LARA: OK.

TONI LIECHTY: Because I think there’s sort of an old fashioned thinking that if we can make people feel bad about the way they look, it will motivate them to be active.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

TONI LIECHTY: And that’s the old school marketing approach, right? If you tell people, oh, you gained weight over the holidays. Don’t you want to lose that weight so that you can look good in a bikini in the summer, that it will encourage people to join your gym. But what we know from the research is that if people join the gym or whatever because of body shaming, then they do not continue to participate. So the difficulty in getting people to accept what the research says as opposed to what may seem a little bit more logical to them.

VINCE LARA: You know, one of your studies looks at barriers to physical activity. And what are some of those barriers and how do you go about trying to combat them?

TONI LIECHTY: I mean, the first barrier I was interested in was just the body image in general, being sort of self-conscious about the way you look. I think for a lot of people– So one of the things that people will report most commonly is that their barrier is time. They’ll say, well, I don’t have time to do it. Yet we know from research that people have time to do a whole lot of other things, right? They have time. Everybody has 24 hours in a day.

So it’s not necessarily how much time you have, but how you choose to allocate your time and what things you prioritize. A lot of people don’t prioritize physical activity because it’s not as easy or enjoyable as pulling out your phone and surfing on social media or doing something that’s more fun.

So one of the barriers, and is going to sound silly, but is just the fact that exercise is not fun for a lot of people. And I am not– I think a lot of people get into studying physical activity because they’re fitness gurus. But I am not a fitness guru. I don’t like going to the gym. I don’t like running. I don’t like working out in the traditional sense.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

TONI LIECHTY: But I like playing tennis. I like hiking. I like doing a lot of things that are active if they have something else that makes them enjoyable. And so for me, well, we also know in terms of research that there is a certain percentage of the population that would probably be active no matter what. They enjoy being active. But that’s a relatively small proportion. And most people, the majority of us don’t particularly like being physically active.

So I’m trying to help figure out how we can make physical activity more fun, more enjoyable, and more of a priority for people. If they have a barrier of just the inertia of getting started, if they view physical activity as a chore, if they think of it as something negative, if they don’t have anyone to participate with, that’s going to be more boring than if they want to do something that’s social.

And then there are a lot of barriers that people face just in their community. They face just the cost. We even hear people say that they don’t go to an activity that’s relatively low cost even if it’s only a couple of dollars. If their income is very low, that couple of dollars on a regular basis is not something they can afford.

Being in their local neighborhood, a lot of people are not willing or able to travel a long distance to work out at a gym or to hike in a park or something like that. So it needs to be relatively accessible to help people overcome that inertia of getting out and doing something active.

VINCE LARA: So what do you try to do to combat those things? Is there a movement that you– do reach out to, let’s say, a local park or community or something like that?

TONI LIECHTY: One of the things that we’ve been doing– So, I’m particularly interested in different life stages. And one group of people that are particularly inactive are older adults. And so, we’ve been working a little bit with Aurora Park District to find out what they do to help get people more active and what they do that is successful and is less successful.

And some of the things that they’ve been doing, one thing that they do is they have a punch card system so that people can buy a punch card. And every time they go to a class, they just take one punch. And that makes it so that they’re not paying for a whole class if they know that they’re not going be able to come every time. It makes it more cost effective. It also makes it feel less overwhelming to pay, say, a large amount of money for a session if they can’t afford it all at once.

And they make the classes fun. They make sure that there’s variety from class to class. They have fun music. They do fun moves during the act during the process. They encourage social interaction so that you come out come out and you hang out with your friends and you all laugh together and have a good time together. And it may sound silly, but fun is a pretty enticing element of any kind of leisure activity. So specifically for physical activity, which is not viewed as being very fun, if you can make it fun, that’s going to get people coming back.

VINCE LARA: You talked about looking at specific segments of people. So one specific segment you look at is women who play tackle football, really interesting. How did you get involved with that?

TONI LIECHTY: So I actually knew someone. She was a mature student who had come back to school. And she took a class from me and I was talking a little bit about body image. And she came up to me after class and said, this really resonated with me because I’ve always had a poor body image because I’ve always been really big. And I wanted to do things like figure skating. This was when I lived in Canada and figure skating’s very popular.

She said, but I never felt that I could do figure skating because I don’t have a body for it. And as an adult, I started playing tackle football and I realized that suddenly, instead of being a negative thing, my size was a positive thing. People appreciated, they wanted me on their team because I was big. So I thought, that’s such a unique setting. That’s such a unique sport that celebrates a bigger body, which is very uncommon for women.

You know, I used to do gymnastics or I played basketball or softball or tennis, different sports that have a sort of body that’s an ideal. And when I started talking to these women on the team, they said, what’s awesome about football for women specifically is that we can be any size that we are, whatever our body is now, and there will be a position that suits us. So instead of me trying to make my body be the way that the sport requires, I have the body that I have and I just find a position on the team that suits the way that my body is. And that makes a big difference in terms of the way I view my body and appreciate what my body can do instead of how my body looks.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. That’s a league in Canada for women who play tackle football?

TONI LIECHTY: Yeah. And there are leagues in the US, too. They’re just not as well-known.

VINCE LARA: Really interesting. You know, Illinois is an R1 university. So research projects are your bailiwick, right. And typically, there’s always a lot in your pipeline. So what have you got going on that you’re really excited about that you’re ready to talk about? It’s at that stage that you’re ready to talk about?

TONI LIECHTY: I think the thing that I’m kind of focusing on right now is a study I’m doing on roller derby. A colleague of mine out of Eastern Illinois University had kind of an in with some local roller derby leagues. And we did, actually, a photo voice approach where we asked the participants to take photographs of what roller derby means to them.

And they took photos of themselves doing derby. They took photos of their outfits. They took photos of their team, their family, and so on. And we interviewed them asking, why did you take these photos? Tell us about your experiences with roller derby.

And in some ways, there were some similarities to the football study in that they said, it’s a really cool sort of empowering sport that celebrates your body instead of telling you to fight your body and make it a certain way. That sense of celebrating your body as it is also encourages you to keep participating because there’s not a constant frustration that my body’s not correct, quote unquote, for this sport.

They also talked a lot about the social aspect and how they felt a lot of social support with the team, which kept them coming back. And a lot of people talked about how participating in that sport in that moment served a really valuable need for them. Like maybe they were going through a divorce or dealing with a health issue or something like that. They found this team and this sport and they were able to enjoy doing something physically active. They felt strong and empowered. They had this social network. So it really filled a lot of needs in their life.

And again, I think that’s one thing that we sometimes miss out on about physical activity. A lot of times, if you’re thinking, OK, I have 30 minutes in the day or a couple of hours in the day. If I can just only get physical activity out of it, that might not be a good enough use of my time. But if I can get physical activity. I can also get fun. I can also develop friendships. I can also develop connections in the community and all these different things, then that’s much a better use of my time, more efficient use of my time.

I don’t know that they all said it in those exact words. But a lot of them just talk about getting multiple benefits from participating in a given sport. And that’s another way that I think we can help promote ongoing activity and physical activity, or ongoing participation in physical activity.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Dr. Liechty. For more podcasts on Illinois College of Applied Health Sciences, search A Few Minutes With on iTunes, Spotify, iHeartRadio, Radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Podcast, Toni Liechty

A Few Minutes With … Bill Stewart

Feb. 12, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

AHS media relations specialist Vince Lara speaks with Bill Stewart, a professor in the department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, to discuss Stewart’s research on the development of parks and conservation areas to enhance a public sense of place and promote environmental awareness.

Listen to the podcast

Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara in the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spent a few minutes with Bill Stewart, professor in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism to discuss his research on the development of parks and conservation areas to enhance a public sense of place and promote environmental awareness.

And, Bill, I like to ask all the faculty when I meet with them this question. And that, is what inspires your research?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. Well, Vince, thank you for inviting me to be at this podcast. It’s really great to be here and to talk with you about this.

VINCE LARA: You bet.

BILL STEWART:What inspires my research? There’s a handful of things that do that. When I was a child, I was born and raised in Michigan. And my family was very much an outdoor enthusiast family. So I went to a lot of parks. I liked all four seasons. Winter activities, springtime romps, and summertime camping and swimming. I’ve always enjoyed being out in nature. And so that sort laid a foundation.

I went to my various programming. I had a previous life before I was an academic, and that previous life took on a couple of different job changes. I spent two years working for an oil company, and as a marketing technologist in a chemical and petroleum additives division. And that was really interesting to get a view of what life was like from the business side of an oil industry. I realized that there were some things that bothered me about the imprint that oil industry left on the environment, and I knew that they’re working hard at trying to reduce waste and pollution. But I thought it’d be better to maybe get more information about what I need to work for an oil company, or any sort of business to help with the environment.

And then I went back to school for my MBA at the University of Chicago. And I went to work for a consulting company, a worldwide consulting company. And I was in their construction engineering systems division. And I went around to a lot– I thought it’d be great to be a consultant where I help people with what they need to do.

And I found myself working for a company that built large petrochemical refinery plants in various places. I read some of their cultural impact statements and their environmental impact statements. And I thought to myself that there’s so much more to valuing nature than simply how many natives to move from one place to another, or how flat they need to make the earth to put the cement slab on to make it a refinery.

And so I went back to school at University of Arizona and the School of Natural Resources for another master’s and a PhD. Looking largely at forestry and watershed management, but I cared not so much about technical aspects of that. But I cared about how communities and individuals relate to development of natural resources. And that’s led me on this journey that I’ve been doing now for, gosh, 35 years or more. Where I really like to understand what other people think about nature, about why they value the places that they do, what some of their meanings are, and appreciate ways in which they connect with the natural environment.

VINCE LARA: You got your undergrad at Illinois, correct?

BILL STEWART:Yeah, I came here from undergraduate. I was in chemistry here. And I love learning about chemistry. It was just a fabulous undergraduate experience for me. And so it’s sort of need to come back to my alma mater to teach and do research.

VINCE LARA: What led you to academia? Because, like you said, you had this career before teaching. So, what was the path here?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. Good question, Vince. I can tell you’re good at this. What led me to an academic was that I’ve always liked reading and writing. And I came to find out during, let’s say my previous life, that I liked reading and writing what I want to read and write about. And I thought that an academic– although I clearly have some large public values that I work under at University of Illinois, I care about community well-being, public health, sustainability. Those are large questions that drive my research. But I could choose ways in which I implement those strategies through my teaching and scholarship.

And I found that the life of the academic to be one where I could be very productive, and I could blur the lines between my work and my let’s just say non-work time. I really like doing what I do. And one of the interesting things is when people ask me if I’m going to work this weekend– friends of mine in the community– I have to pause a bit. Because I’ve always, I guess, worked on the weekend. I just like to read and write about things that I care about in my teaching and research.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. So, your research involves conservation planning. Can you talk a little bit about that?

BILL STEWART:Yeah conservation planning, it’s a really huge concept. And my window into conservation planning has to do with bringing in stakeholders. Stakeholders are those people who are affected by or can affect environmental decision making. Often of a public need nature, like building a park, or developing a wetland, restoring a prairie. Those would be examples of environmental park development projects.

And for me, conservation planning is about working with communities to, at least in the Midwest here, to look at this corn or bean field on the outskirts of town that’s going to be a new development, and ask themselves to imagine what would that be like as a park. So they see it as a current cornfield, and they’re are wondering how to imagine what they need to be when they make that into some subdivisions and divide that up.

And to some extent it’s about land use planning, but to another extent it’s also about adding value to people’s lives. Each town has their unique heritage and their sense of identity on a landscape. And it’s fun to work with communities to understand what their own sense of history is about. And often, parks tend to be emblematic of those kinds of values that people have had historically in any given area their relationship with the locale.

For example, I think of Urbana and Champaign. They’re supposedly twin cities in ways that were clearly fraternal twins. You’ve got Urbana, whose parks are largely natural areas. They have this relationship with nature that says, nature should be restored and sort of untouched by humans. That the best kind of nature, the idealized park, is an environment where people are there to visit. And we’ve restored sort of a pristine nature, to some extent. Champaign parks are very different. Champaign parks have more of, I want to say, a progressive narrative of humans and nature. Where humans play a role of gardening, and they make them beautiful, and they’re meant for places for people to walk and have activities.

So although that they still have some very similar amenities, Urbana Park District has more natural areas. Champaign Park District has more cultural areas. And they’re very different views of what each town is like.

VINCE LARA: Interesting. Are we getting better at quantifying what a park means to an area? Whether it’s economically, or in non-tangible ways, are we getting better about understanding what green space means?

BILL STEWART:Yeah, that’s a great question there. I think of the notion of, what does any sort of environment mean as being one of place? The concept of place and place making really underscores a lot of my research. A sense of place is a uniqueness of a meaning that people feel as attachment to an environment. And their sense of place at a personal level where you might think about your grandmother’s pasture, and the personal relationship you have with that pasture, or your grandmother’s backyard.

When I think about community sense of place, is there something collective about the community that makes its relationship with its local environments unique to that locale? And so, your question is, are we getting better at quantifying that? Just to step back from that, I’d like to think we’re getting better understanding those relationships. Those relationships come in many kinds, as you mentioned. There’s the economic valuation, there is a personal valuation, there’s sociological, there’s emotional, there’s spirituality. There’s all sorts of ways in which we connect with environments.

And I’m going to say that we’re just tapping the surface of the iceberg in understanding ways that people and communities have come to identify and care about their environments. And that kind of research is urgently needed. We’ve got, at least when I was first born back in 1955– I’m dating myself here– there is 2.5 billion people on the Earth. Right now I think we’ve got 7.5 billion people on the Earth. So in my lifetime alone– I’m 65 this year– the Earth’s population has tripled. And in that time period there’s been– I’ve never noticed any one year the increase in people. But across my lifespan I’ve noticed there is coming to be a scarcity of wild lands, of open space, of wetlands, of spots that you could go out and enjoy nature.

And so I think that the more information we have about how people connect with an environment, I think the better off we’ll be as a society. Because we need to know that those empty spaces, supposedly that really are out of production, in fact are really valuable to people.

VINCE LARA: Now, you direct the Park and Environmental Behavior Research Lab. And as a researcher, you always have projects going on. Are there any that you have going on currently that you’re– you’re excited about all of them, I’m sure. But are there any that you want to talk about that are top of mind for you?

BILL STEWART:Yeah. You’re right on that. I’ve got the neatest group of graduate students and research projects that I’m currently doing. And they’ve added a lot of value to my life and my students’ lives. I guess there’s two that come to mind.

One has to do with the evaluation Chicago’s large lot program. As you may know, there’s an urban vacancy problem across most of the world’s cities. And it’s particularly acute in the northern tier of this country, through the Rust Belt, I’m going to say. Where people have moved out of the city and urban areas for various reasons. Often they abandon their house, and they abandon their house. At times, a city will come in and fold the house into its foundation, or just haul it off. And so this left with what was once a thriving neighborhood in an urban area has become a lot of empty lots there.

Just to give you some examples of this, Philadelphia has about 40,000 vacant lots. Buffalo has about 15 vacant lots. Cleveland about 25,000. Detroit has 125,000 vacant lots to the tune of 25 square miles in Detroit. Chicago has about 35,000 vacant lots. And I will say that these vacant lots are not evenly distributed around the city. They happen only in certain neighborhoods. And what Chicago has done, which is very innovative and quite bold, they developed this green healthy neighborhood plan in 2012. And a cornerstone of that plan to sell off these vacant lots to someone that owned property on the block for $1. And so for $1, if you own property on the block, you could purchase let’s say in the vacant lot next to you and do whatever you wanted to with it.

And so I’m evaluating the social and environmental impacts of that large lot policy. And, it’s good news. We found that it connects people to their sense of place, it connects people to their neighbors, which their neighbors help them further garden their spot, and they help to pick up debris. They’ve come to know their neighbors in a tighter fashion that creates this sense of place that was much stronger than what it used to be. Where the lights used to have a past, because it wasn’t– people would look out on the block and say, wow, that’s where so-and-so used to live, that’s what this other family used to live. And now they see empty lots. So it sort of was a lot with a past and not a future.

Now with this large lot policy, these lots have been bought up, now have a future for them. And so these neighborhoods, the people who stayed behind, they care deeply about their neighborhoods. They stayed behind not because they’re desperate. But because of family or community reasons, they decided to stay and slug it out through the hard times. And now they’re finally getting rewarded if they own property. They can, if they want to, purchase that lot and create a new vision of what that block could be by repurposing a once vacant lot.

VINCE LARA: Now, you’re obviously excited about the large lot research that you’re doing. Is there other research– and I like to call these moonshot projects, because they’re kind of off into the distance. They might not be attainable currently. But are there things that, given the resources and the time and the amount of graduate research assistants you need, that you think about? That you write down, you scribble on a piece of paper maybe at 3:00 in the morning and you’re like, oh, I wish I had the time to do this.

BILL STEWART:Yeah, that’s a really good question. So, I should step back just a minute and say that my research all revolves around a concept called place making. Where people, families, communities, individuals, they aspire to make their place something different and better than what it currently is. And that’s where the large lot project comes in. It’s about place making in an urban environment.

I guess I would continue on that line, as long as we’re talking about the large lot project, there is another moonshot project that deals with more of an urban ecological nature. Where I really have partnered with my colleagues Carena van Riper in Department of Natural Resource and Environmental Sciences, Paul Gobster, who is a landscape architect with the Forest Service. And Alessandro Rigolon, who’s a planner now with the University of Utah. That’s the large lot team.

There’s another forthcoming possibility, and I hope we get the invitation through the National Science Foundation, to invite us to submit a full blown proposal for what’s called a leader project, or long term ecological change for urban areas. And that’s largely working with ecologists out of Chicago that are based in various universities up there. And they’re looking for ways to couple social issues along with ecological issues. No longer can we study the ecology of a system and not be concerned about what– let’s include people in this ecological understanding.

So, I think it’d be really a neat challenge for myself and my students to do a more stronger coupling of healing communities with ecological communities, and try to understand just a baseline description of what is the nature of that relationship. And to some extent, are there interventions that can happen through policy triggers that the city can do– much like the large lot program– to further facilitate a healthy social ecological resilience? To make human communities more ready to respond to changes in their future.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Bill Stewart. To hear more about Illinois and the College of Applied Health Sciences, find our podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and iHeartRadio by searching a few minutes. See you next time.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Bill Stewart, Department of Recreation Sport and Tourism, Podcast

Podcast: A Few Minutes With … Brandon Peters

Jan. 06, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

*Brandon Peters (Photo courtesy of Division of Intercollegiate Athletics)*

Vince Lara of the College of Applied Health Sciences speaks with Illinois starting quarterback Brandon Peters, a graduate student in the Recreation, Sport and Tourism department of AHS.

Peters, who got his undergraduate degree at Michigan before transferring to Illinois, talks about why he picked RST and what he enjoys about the classes.

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Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today, I speak with Brandon Peters, starting quarterback for the Illinois football team, and RST grad student.

I’m talking with Brandon Peters, who’s the starting quarterback for the Illinois football team. So Brandon, how much did graduate programs– in terms of deciding where you wanted to continue playing– how much did the academics part of it, and how much, honestly, did the football playing part it have a play in your decision?

BRANDON PETERS: I would say football was the main focus for me. But, you know, when I came on my official visit, they kind of laid out the academic plan for me. And, you know, kind of weighing my options. Illinois being the university that it is, they offered the RST program for me to be in, and sport management was always something I was interested in at Michigan. And I just thought it was a great opportunity to come to Illinois, also at the academic level.

VINCE LARA: Now, you’re taking some online courses, what I had read. But you’re on campus obviously a lot. Have you run into any of your professors? Or have you had a chance to interact with any of them?BRANDON PETERS: Not yet, but I’m going to set up a meeting with the RST– I forget. Tiger?

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm.

BRANDON PETERS: (Prof.) Tiger. Yeah. I’m going to set up a meeting with him, and just get to know him a little bit, and talk to him.

VINCE LARA: Now obviously, football’s the goal. Right? Ultimately, whether it’s the NFL, CFL, XFL, or whatever it is. But if that doesn’t happen, or even thinking post-football, do you have any ideas? Like, maybe RST hopes? You know, like you can work as a GM, or you can work in– you’re doing sport management as your focus, right? So what have you thought about post-football?

BRANDON PETERS: I really haven’t thought much into it yet. I still have another year to play. When it gets to that time, I think I’m going to think at it in more depth. But like you said, I’ve always thought about staying in the sport world, since I’ve always been so close to it my whole life. I think this will definitely help me propel myself into the future when I get to that point.

VINCE LARA: You’re from Avon, Indiana.

BRANDON PETERS: Yeah.

VINCE LARA: So did the proximity of Illinois play a big factor in deciding to come here?

BRANDON PETERS: Yeah. I mean, the other school that I had a lot of interest in too was Miami, Ohio, which is even closer than Illinois. Being able to stay at home was a great opportunity for me. And then just to be even closer to my family, and they could come to even more games. You know, my elders, my grandma and grandpa can travel well to games. So you know, it’s nice to have that.

VINCE LARA: Definitely. One last question I have for you. What classes are you taking right now?

BRANDON PETERS: RST 515 and 512.

VINCE LARA: 512? What are those courses like?

BRANDON PETERS: Organization and marketing.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Brandon Peters. This has been A Few Minutes With.

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Podcast

A Few Minutes With … Alan Nathan

April 14, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

At the Sapora Symposium, University of Illinois emeritus professor of physics Alan Nathan speaks with College of Applied Health Sciences media relations specialist Vince Lara about his research on the physics of baseball.

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Transcript

VINCE LARA: This is Vince Lara at the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois. Today I spend a few minutes with Alan Nathan, emeritus professor of physics at Illinois, and renowned baseball physicist. Alan recently gave a presentation at the Sapora Symposium on the campus of Illinois.

Alan, Rob Arthur, who you know, recently wrote about the baseball– “Did they dejuice the baseball? Did they rejuice the baseball? The answer is both, depending on the day.” I’m wondering what your opinion is.

ALAN NATHAN: Well, the thing that Rob did was he looked at so-called drag coefficient. So it’s a measure of how much speed the ball loses as its going through the air. So it’s a very important factor for fly balls. The more the air drag, the less likely it is to be a home run. Turns out, you can measure these things actually very, very well, just with all of the pitching data that we have from Statcast. We have thousands and thousands and thousands of pitches that we can analyze, and if you look over the last couple of years, and even within any given year, you see a lot of fluctuations up and down of this quantity, suggesting that the ball itself is quite variable from one ball to the other, and you see changes from year to year. So for example, in 2018, the drag was somewhat higher than it had been in 2017. The ball didn’t carry as far, and consequently fewer home runs. Things reversed again in 2019, where the drag was down– home runs were up. And then the post-season happened, and home runs are up, home runs were down, and then they were up, and it became a rather confused situation. I think it’s probably fair to say it’s still a somewhat confused situation. Although one thing I would say about the postseason, of course– you have fewer games being played than on a typical day during the regular season, so you sort of have to take that into account. But–

VINCE LARA: And better pitching, too.

ALAN NATHAN: And better pitching, colder weather on the average. I mean, there are all kinds of things you have to take into account.

VINCE LARA: Mm-hmm. OK. You know, Rob also wrote at the beginning of this season, that the ball had lower drag, and that was something that was later corroborated by MLB officials. Your 2014 study however, found that the primary reason for variation is due to a difference in the drag properties of different types of baseball. And there’s even variation within a given type. So are you talking about the seam height, or are you talking about the inside of the ball, are you like– what sorts of things were you looking at in that study?

ALAN NATHAN: Yeah. Well, the study that I did in 2014 was entirely simply looking at trajectories of baseballs, and measuring how far they’d gone. We didn’t dissect the ball or do anything on the inside of the ball. What we did do is we did measure the seam height, and we found that there was a definite correlation between the seam height and the drag. So the higher the seams, the more drag, the less well the ball carries. We found that particularly when looking at different types of balls. So at the time, the NCAA was using a raised seam baseball. They have since switched to a flat seam baseball. And we definitely found that that raised seam baseball simply didn’t carry as far. In fact, the fact that the ball didn’t carry as far led the NCAA to switch to a flat seam ball, to basically get more home runs.

VINCE LARA: Right.

ALAN NATHAN: So we didn’t look at the interior of the ball, we didn’t look at the seams. Now in our initial study from Major League Baseball, which took place in 2017– the report was issued in 2018– we were looking at the home run increase over the 2015-17 period, and we found you could pretty much attribute all that increase in home runs to drag. However, we really were not able at that time to figure out what exactly changed in the ball that would lead to more drag– or less drag, and therefore more home runs. Now for sure it’s true that, as I said, the drag was up, homers down in 2018, and the reverse in 2019. The home committee of Major League Baseball sort of got back into action around mid-season this year, and we’re–

VINCE LARA: Which you’re part of.

ALAN NATHAN: Which I’m part of. And we are getting close.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: We’re getting close to the point where we’re going to go public with our findings.

VINCE LARA: Interesting.

ALAN NATHAN: I can’t talk about it, what they are, but we’re getting quite close to that. Hopefully maybe at the Winter Meetings, which will be in a few weeks.

VINCE LARA: OK. You know, Rob Manfred has said– and Rawlings has said– that the baseball recipe remains the same, regardless of year. However, Meredith Willis, who you also know, and Rob Arthur concluded this year that ball construction was different, including lower seam height. Do you have any insight into that? Like, how that happens? If baseball’s saying it’s not– you know, baseball’s saying that the recipe is the same.

ALAN NATHAN: Well, for sure. I believe it’s true that the recipe is the same. I mean, I really do believe– I visited the plant in Costa Rica where the balls are made a couple of years ago. We’ve talked extensively with people from Rawlings. There are changes that are made, but largely due to the fact that you’re dealing with organic materials– wool, leather, cotton– and there’s variation in those materials. So– but the process really hasn’t changed. There could very well be differences from one ball to another within a given year, differences in average properties of the balls from one year to another, and that’s just a natural consequence of the materials that are used and the actual process that’s made. I mean, there’s a lot of hand work that’s done to create a baseball, particularly sewing the cotton threads through the leather on the outside– that’s all done by hand.

So for sure, Meredith Wills has taken some balls apart, she’s found differences from one year to the next. Her latest article came out, in fact, just yesterday, and she looked at the postseason balls, and– OK, she drew some conclusions there. What she hasn’t done– because she really has no way to do it– is to show in any conclusive way that whatever changes she does see actually affect the drag on the ball. That is something that we, our group, is actually uniquely able to do, because we can take baseballs– we have large samples of baseballs, we can take them into the laboratory, we can measure their drag with very, very high precision, much higher precision than you can actually measure by tracking pitches in a ballgame. And we can measure seam height very accurately, we could measure the roundness of the ball, we can measure the thickness of the seam, and the surface of the ball. I mean, the drag is largely a surface effect. It’s the air interacting with the ball, and the only thing the air sees is the surface of the ball. So you know, you could pretty well isolate it. Is it– to be something associated with the leather, the smoothness of the leather, for example? Or something to do with the seams? And if you look at a baseball, there’s a lot of little holes there in the leather, and the seams are sticking up, and there’s a lot going on there, and no one has been able to model this from a fundamental physics point of view from First Principles. So ultimately, you’re stuck with just doing the best measurements you can, which is I believe what we’re able to actually do.

VINCE LARA: Now, the very fact that Major League Baseball has your committee, and the very fact that you looked at things like a humidor in the Diamondbacks’ park in Chase Field, says to me that Major League Baseball is concerned about this explosion of home runs. Now–

ALAN NATHAN: I have no inside information.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: I don’t question people’s motivations at all, so I can’t say what’s on their mind. I don’t interact directly with Rob Manfred.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: I do interact with the people I interact with– Reed MacPhail. MacPhail’s a famous name in baseball, this is the fourth generation MacPhail.

VINCE LARA: OK, fourth generation.

ALAN NATHAN: And Morgan Sword is the other person I interact with. And I can tell you, from having talked with him extensively, that– I don’t know what their bosses are thinking, but they for sure are very concerned.

VINCE LARA: OK.

ALAN NATHAN: And I can also say that having–

VINCE LARA: Are they concerned because it’s affecting the integrity of the game?

ALAN NATHAN: I guess– I don’t know. Look, I don’t want to characterize why they’re concerned. I know they’re concerned. I mean, maybe they’re just concerned because they’re getting a lot of bad publicity, I don’t know.

VINCE LARA: Right, right.

ALAN NATHAN: But they are concerned. And I know Rawlings is concerned. I think Rawlings is largely concerned because of bad publicity.

VINCE LARA: Sure.

ALAN NATHAN: They really don’t like all the bad publicity they’re getting, and sometimes they’re even a little defensive about it. But all by way of saying, that I think they’re– I believe, personally, that they’re all honest brokers, that they really are– for whatever their reasons– are trying to figure out why there is an increase in home runs. If the ball has changed, what has changed? How can we, going forward, better control the production of the ball? And I really do believe that they are genuinely concerned about that, but I don’t know their motivations for being concerned.

VINCE LARA: I’m going to ask you something that I asked Charlie Young, who was on an earlier podcast. Which came first for you, your love of baseball or your love of physics?

ALAN NATHAN: It’s an interesting question. So I like to tell people that I have been a physicist all of my professional life. I’ve been a baseball fan virtually all of my life. Now, it is true that I had a long career as a nuclear physicist– faculty member here at the University of Illinois, teaching physics, doing research. And it was really well into the game that I got interested in baseball. So although I’ve– in applying physics to baseball, I’ve been interested in baseball, but in the specific job of applying physics to baseball, it’s been much more recent. It’s been over 20 years, but still I was well into my career when that happened.

VINCE LARA: What sparked that?

ALAN NATHAN: Interesting question.

VINCE LARA: Yeah.

ALAN NATHAN: There’s actually an interesting story. So the physics department has this outreach program where we give talks on Saturday mornings– used to be for high school honor students, but now they’ve opened it up to the public, they call it Physics for Everyone. And way back in 1997, it was my turn to give a talk. And normally the faculty talk about their research but they present it in a way that the general public can understand it. So I was thinking of doing something like that, but then there was this book called The Physics of Baseball, written by another physics professor, that I had had in my bookshelf for about five or six years. I bought the book, I thought I’ll do this one someday, but I never read it. All right, so then I said, you know, I’m going to talk about the physics of baseball, which will force me to read the book, and I’ll learn something and it’ll be a one shot deal but it’ll be kind of fun. And it would have been a one shot deal, never to be returned to, except that there was a News Gazette reporter in the audience who interviewed me afterwards, wrote it up in the front page of the Sunday paper, and then everyone started calling me up to give talks, and this and that, and then it just sort of blossomed from there.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Alan Nathan. This has been “A Few Minutes With.”

Tags: A Few Minutes With, Alan Nathan, Sapora Symposium

COVID-19: A World Without Sport Podcast

March 21, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Vince Lara of the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois speaks with Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey of the Recreation, Sport and Tourism department, about a world without sports, due to the coronavirus outbreak.

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Transcript

VINCE LARA: Hi, and welcome to another edition of A Few Minutes With, the podcast that showcases Illinois’s College of Applied Health Sciences. I’m Vince Lara. And today I’m speaking with Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey, professors in the Department of Recreation, Sport, and Tourism, to talk about the impact of a world without sport during the coronavirus outbreak.

All right. Jon Welty Peachey and Mike Raycraft are with me from Recreation, Sport, and Tourism. And we’re talking about the state of affairs due to the coronavirus, novel coronavirus, and how it’s impacting our world in terms of, this is the first time all three of us have been through work stoppages in all the sports. But this is the first time on a global scale where we’ve had no sports activity.

And I’m wondering, Jon, I’ll start with you on this, because you’ve worked on sport development and how it impacts countries. For you, can you tell us what kind of impact a world without sport has on– let’s even start with a really low, ground-level community, and then a city-state, and even a country.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Sure. And besides the economic impact, which is certainly huge, one of the things that’s happened is, I like to think of it as we– in communities, we have what’s called a “third space.” We have home, we have work. And those are places that we spend a lot of time.

But we also need what are called “third spaces” or “third places.” And these are venues, places we go where we experience community, where we are social with others, where we bond, where we relax social norms in some ways, make connections. And we’re in an age right now where we don’t have these third places.

And sport provides those third places in many respects– when you think of the venues, the arenas, the stadiums, going to the local pub to watch the game, gathering at somebody’s house to watch the game. So right now we’re socially distancing. And we’re taking away these third spaces, these places, which I think is going to have some profound impact in terms of how people at the local level can experience community. Maybe some creative ways will emerge to do that.

I think there’s going to be impact broader, at the national, at the international levels, when you think about how sport has played a role in building community and bringing together disparate others from various backgrounds. And we don’t have that right now. Hopefully, we will again in the future. But we’ve removed that context at the present moment.

So I think the impact is going to be profound when you think about the social adjustments that we’re going to need to make in the very near future. My hope is that we come up with some creative ways, that we haven’t thought about yet, to perhaps provide that connection, whether it’s through sports or other types of leisure services that can still help people experience those third places which are so vital for us.

VINCE LARA: Jon, let me ask you another question. Do you think that if the sports leagues had decided to play without fans, there’d still be that element of– people would still be able to plug in, even without being able to attend?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Well, I think so. But I’m not sure that that would have been the right thing to do, when you think about where we are right now, and the fact that we have athletes and coaches testing positive for the virus. You know, when we think of the broader picture, what I think we need to do to really help society deal with this pandemic, should we continue to provide that content and expose our athletes, and coaches, and referees, and trainers and such to potential long-term effects of the virus?

I’m not sure it would be worth it. Even though we’re missing this social element, I think we have to think about the greater good in some ways, and the health of the athletes, the coaches, and the staff that would still have to be involved and be in the stadiums and the arenas.

VINCE LARA: I wonder where– and either of you can answer this. What do you think of the IOC deciding not yet to pull the plug on the Olympics?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: I can leap in there again. And Mike can certainly fill in, too. But personally, I question that a little bit. I know why they’re hesitating, simply because of the magnitude of the scale of that decision. But one of the things that it does, though, is when you think about– where are the athletes training now, and how are they training?

And are we saying that we don’t care about their health right now? So essentially, if an athlete has been training all these years, and the Olympic games are still on, they still have to somehow keep that level of fitness and on-point readiness with their sport. And how are they going to do that and not be at risk?

So where do they train? How do they train? I think there’s a lot of questions there. So we’re saying, yeah, we’re going to still do the event, but you need to go on training as you normally would to be able to qualify and such. So I’m not sure I agree with that personally, when you look at the greater good.

And as well, all the other events that have canceled, not just in sport, but across the board, and concerts, and music festivals, and all of the really social places and events, big events that are postponing. I’m not sure about that decision. I’d be interested in Mike’s thoughts on that as well.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I was chatting the other day with a colleague of mine that was an Olympic athlete in 1980 on the US Olympic team. And so the president for the plug being pulled is there. And we talked about it, and here we are 40 years later.

And looking back, I think, you know, it was kind of agreed that was the right decision, that sometimes things are just bigger than a sport event. This is one of those.

VINCE LARA: Let me ask you– what do you guys think– is there a different impact depending on size of country when these events are canceled? In other words, the Olympics canceled in the United States, it’s certainly a big event here. But it’s not as big as it is in another country.

So does the cancellation depend on scale of country or importance?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Oh, absolutely. I mean, the United States has got– with a high-end college and professional sports, they can focus on that. Or you get this in smaller countries around the world– the Olympics is the whole party. It’s their opportunity to compete on a national stage.

So yeah, I think it’s a bigger deal in other places. It’s a big deal here, too. But, you know, we have alternatives that other countries don’t.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, I agree. I agree with Mike. You know, I think it is scalable. I think the impact, certainly for certain countries, as Mike said, you’re gearing up for an event where you do have perhaps a little bit of prominence. You excel in a certain sport or activity. And it provides that national identity. It provides that rallying point for citizens in a country and such.

So to remove that, I think the effect would be more pronounced for certain countries, whether it’s based on size, or based on how sports has been developed in that country. We have some countries that might be large in size but still, sports is not as developed as it is here in the United States.

So yeah, the impacts are going to really vary by a lot of different factors, I think, for nations here. But really, I think, we have to do what’s right, and think about we’re all in this together in many ways. And we don’t want to think that, I think, one event, such as the Olympic games, is more important than the health of the world. And I think that’s a very myopic view, to have that.

So perhaps we’ll still be able to host it in some modified fashion, based on how things go the next month or two. But I think we have to think about the greater good. And I hope our sport executives and those making decisions will do that, will keep the greater good of society in mind.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One of the things that’s come up in my classes last week was a conversation about the Olympics, and how the future could be where it goes to having just from one host city to make it a worldwide event, where you host in wrestling one place, track and field one place, basketball one place, and kind of divide it up instead of having it in one host area. Which was interesting, because it seemed that it would provide more people the opportunity to go to live events. It would maybe help out in terms of security and whatnot.

And it kind of makes me think sometimes, is this the type of thing which could maybe trigger that type of a thought, where it’s a worldwide games where it’s spread out? Or one city isn’t taking all the expense and all the heat. You could spread her out across the globe.

VINCE LARA: You know, economically, obviously is the biggest hit that a world without sport delivers. But does it deliver a bigger hit to us psychologically or physiologically?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, it’s a great question. And I think both. I’m not sure you can get into degrees. I think psychologically, it is very, very important, and when you think of the identity that many of us have with regards to sport– and not just athletes, but fans, and highly identified individuals, and those that work in the industry. When we have something removed from us that we’re so invested in, whatever that might be, that can lead to a lot of psychological challenges for people, from depression, to lethargy, to all kinds of things.

And I think we’re going to have to find ways to help people in this time think about, where do we get our identity from? And so you think of athletes that are so identified with their sport. And that’s all we have ever known and done. And then all of a sudden, in a matter of an hour your season’s over. Or these decisions are made that take away what you do.

If you’re so invested and identified in that sport that you have basically nothing else, I think that’s where the psychological impact is going to be, in my view, really pronounced, that I think we’re going to have a role for sports psychologists and other health care professionals and mental health professionals in the coming days to reach out and to help those that are really affected by this– and I’m talking athletes here right now– to provide some services, to really help them get through this. I think that’s going to be vital and important.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One of the things that I’ve seen that I think is interesting is with youth, especially. Kids say under 20, esports, and online gaming, and whatnot has helped them a lot in terms of connecting. And the kids are able to play and be together that way and connect. Or I don’t think the younger generation is going to be as impacted, perhaps, as 20s, 25 on up. They’re finding an outlet.

And then that makes you wonder, hey, where does that go? And how does that impact kind of the role of e-gaming and esports in the next five years?

VINCE LARA: Jon, in terms of youth sport networks, since you deal a lot with this, and the construction of them, how long does a youth sport network have to wait to restart based on what the major league sports do? In other words, if baseball restarts in June, do Little Leagues, let’s say, they don’t start till July to make sure?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think I’d like to see that there would be some pause, there would be some gap, or some time that we do wait. Particularly, when you think about children, and youth, and being in these spaces right now, I don’t think it’s imperative that it’s all aligned, that Little League must start, say if MLB goes back, or when the season might start, that that’s all aligned so much.

Again, I think we have to think bigger than that, and think really about the welfare, and safety, and the health of the kids and the youth. You know, if there is a little bit of a delay as we see– you know, as the CDC is saying, there could be multiple waves of this virus that kind of peaks and goes down, and then comes up and there’s– we want to be certain that we’re not exposing children and youth too early again.

So I don’t want to think we have to rush to go back to starting these leagues up again. Let’s be sure. And go by followwhat’s recommended by the CDC and other health bodies, not being so concerned that we have to align, say, with when the Major Leagues start, but really reflecting on what’s best for the population that we’re serving.

VINCE LARA: What kind of a role can a youth sports coach take in this time? Is it merely outreach? You know, do they send out emails to parents? Or do they just back off?

JON WELTY PEACHEY: No, I think they do need to be– not aggressive, but they do need to stay involved. Because there’s so much connection that the kids and parents have invested in their youth sport- time in the league. Because I’d be interested in Mike’s take on this as well.

I think, you know, we don’t want to send too much information. But we certainly want to be in touch, to express that we still have this community. Maybe there’s some creative blogs and some ways that some online connections can happen that leagues can implement, so that folks can stay in touch. Or maybe there’s some virtual gaming that can happen between and with teams, or ways that that sense of community that, this can continue to go on during this time.

You know, if kids are stuck at home. And so maybe leagues can see their role as trying to help create some spaces for their youth, for their children to continue to interact. Although it might have to be looked at differently right now. But I think those would be some ways that they can continue that connection point for them.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: One thing you’ve seen this week online are a lot of entertainment people doing musical concerts out of their living room. I watched one an hour ago with Brian Wilson. And frankly, it could be– from a marketing sense, it could be an opportunity for professional sports, athletes to market themselves to youth, in terms of, hey, we’re home. Your home here. Let’s connect. And today we’re going to do a session on understanding the fundamentals of baseball or whatnot.

You know, one of the audiences where I think pro sports have had a tough time in recent generations, that’s connecting with young people. It’s so expensive and whatnot. This could be their opportunity to connect and find new ways for kids to build bonds with their teams.

VINCE LARA: You know, one thing that this period, guys, of no sports has made me think about is, what would have been the impact of not having sports on our world? I mean, our vocabulary would be different. I was joking with Mike before we started recording about, how many cliches we use in everyday life.

Turnaround victory for a politician. A clutch comeback by Biden. You know, there’s so many things that sort of seep into everyday life. And for you– for both of you– how do you think life would be different if we didn’t have this infrastructure of sport?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: You know, to go back to what Jon said earlier about third space, I don’t think that’s going to– there’s always going to be a need for that, a connection. And so I don’t think that’s– I cannot imagine a world like that, because I don’t think we’re really built like that as human beings.

We need– there’s always that connection point. And we teach in RST of the whole leisure connection in terms of what is it that brings us all together. And what brings us all together is this is this drive to the third space, and what is this that motivates us.

So sports will always exist. Is it going to change and evolve? Yeah, it sure is. And just like we evolved after 9/11 in terms of how we look at spaces, and security, and travel, and whatnot. You know, we’re going to look at the world differently after this, too. And that’s not all bad, for sure.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: I agree with Mike. And I don’t know if we could ever have a world without sport and play. And if you look at the history of sport or play, which sport really is, and you’ll see that in every culture and every country, there is sport, and there is play. There’s not one culture that does not have it in one form or the other. It manifests differently, of course, with different types of play and sport.

But even in caveman times, there was play. There was this is element.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: I mean, you might see more of a growth and more of a prominence of individual sports or routine sports. That could be. That could be.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah. And I was out running this morning. And I think I saw more people outside than I ever remember on my running route. Because this is one space we can go right now.

But it’s an interesting question, Vince. Our answers aren’t great. But that’s because I think we’re having a hard time conceptualizing–

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Yeah, agreed.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: –a world without sport and play, and how that could come about. But certainly, if we didn’t have that there’d be a huge void. But there has to be some third place. I mean, there has to be these activities that provide meaning socially and such beyond the homes and beyond the work. And if you don’t have that, I don’t think we really have society in many ways.

So we have to creatively now continue to think about, how do we provide these spaces, whether it’s in RST, in sport, or entertainment, a variety of ways we continue to offer these spaces for people. Because it’s fundamental to society.

VINCE LARA: That’s a good point to jump to. Something that Mike and I talked about before we started recording, Mike, which was, you thought that there was a possibility of bringing about some kind of positive societal change. And I’m wondering if you would expound on that.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I think there is possible societal change in that we’re having the opportunity to spend some time at home with our families, and to rediscover some things that are fundamental to the human experience that maybe we’ve ignored, to bond and to make those connections. something And so– to read, to clean out your garage, maybe? To do things that are positive, and, frankly, to reassess.

You know, I stopped playing the piano 20 years ago because I got busy. Well, I can perhaps rediscover talents and interests that, you know, I haven’t really touched on in 20 years. And so I don’t think that’s all bad. I think we all walk out of this experience changed. And certainly, it’s, again, it’s not all bad.

VINCE LARA: Jon, I’m imagining you have similar feelings.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Sure, I do. I agree totally with Mike. Just reflecting on the past couple of days for our family, and I’m exactly being able to re-establish or connect a little bit away from the frenzied life that we probably all feel like we’re normally in. And I think there are some ways that maybe this, when things get back to normal– whatever that normal might be– that we have emerged changed.

Or maybe we value things a little differently. We value family more, which would be a positive change. We value relationships. You know the old saying, you don’t know that you really value something till you don’t have it, till you miss it. And, you know, and maybe we’re going to re-evaluate, hopefully, the importance of people in our lives, not take people for granted.

I think there could be a lot of positive that comes out of this. And so I think that’s a hopeful thing.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Yeah, I’d be very curious to see what happens on campus in the fall. Because I don’t think a lot of the undergraduates really understood what was going on. They have a tendency to live in their own world, and all of a sudden this whole thing kind of– the road got ripped up underneath them. And mom comes with the station wagon to pick up the bedding in the dorm, and we’re going home.

And they have five months to kind of assess what life is away from campus, and what value those campus life, and campus connections, and those relationships, and the scholarly part, et cetera, all have. So I think they’ll come back in the fall tremendously engaged, and tremendously excited to be back and part of the campus, and anxious to connect with people, probably be tired of talking on the phone and FaceTiming. And maybe we can get away from screens and then connect face-to-face.

VINCE LARA: You know, in closing I just want to ask you both about– you both will have students who have internships this summer in industries that are really affected– well, everything is affected but– are affected by this coronavirus crisis. And what kind of advice do you have for them?

Mike, you and I talked about it. So why don’t you answer that first?

MIKE RAYCRAFT: Well, I would say first and foremost, the University Illinois and Department of Rec, Sport, Tourism is going to do everything they possibly can to ensure that the students have a good experience, a meaningful experience, and will graduate on time according to their pace. Or in terms of working with the organizations, we have students that go out in all types of industries, sport being obviously a big part of them.

We’re waiting right now, I think, in terms of what does that look like, what does the experience look like. It’s a little bit early to tell for some. I know we’ve got some kids that are out now and doing spring internships. And a lot of them are doing exactly what we are. They’re continuing to work and contribute from their apartments, their homes, et cetera, a different way.

And so they’re certainly going to be learning. It’s very, very interesting time to be out on your internships for sure, because you entered one world, and you walked out of another one.

JON WELTY PEACHEY: Yeah. And I think there’s certainly going to be an impact, too, on if we think about, say, sport or RST, which is– certainly recreation, tourism, and sport have all been affected by this, but in terms of employment, and when and how organizations are going to be hiring, and what that means for our graduates, and how will job roles change, will there be more virtual options now for our graduates to come in on front line positions?

And so it is going to be interesting to see how that evolves a bit, and what the supply/demand is as we move forward a little bit. So I think I’m hopeful. But I think we’re– I come back to, we have to think outside the box and really be creative in terms of how we provide internships, what the nature of our job roles are, and how those may need to be redefined for the foreseeable future.

So that can be positive, too, in terms of changing how we do business. And it might be a time when businesses do reflect on how we engage with things, how we put on our product, how we stage our events. So we could emerge from this stronger, to put a positive spin on it.

MIKE RAYCRAFT: I agree with that. It’s certainly a great time to be creative. My advice to my students is to keep up, to read, to follow the news, to follow what’s going on in sport and related industries, and reflect on it a bit, and reassess and come, determine what role can they have. It’s kind of a new insight, new perspectives, because the whole industry is going to change. And frankly, they could be in front of it.

VINCE LARA: My thanks to Mike Raycraft and Jon Welty Peachey. For more podcasts on Illinois’ College of Applied Health Sciences, search “A Few Minutes With” on iTunes, Spotify, iHeart Radio, radio.com, and other places you get your podcast fix. Thanks for listening, and see you next time.

Alumni Spotlight—Katie Bradbury

Sept. 13, 2021 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Katie Bradbury, who got her master’s degree in Recreation, Sport and Tourism in 2013 and who is now an afterschool adventure/camp supervisor in the city of Mesquite, Texas.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: There has not been a chapter of my life that did not include recreation, be it county recreation programs I took part in as a kid, or working at overnight summer camps for the better part of my teens and early 20s. My life has been pretty much dedicated to the field of recreation, and what better program to gain further knowledge in recreation than the RST program. Although there are plenty of universities that offered Recreation, Sports, and Tourism, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was the only one (that) multiple professors from my undergrad days had mentioned to further my educational career.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: I would say financing and budgeting as well as Human Resources in RST were both classes I enjoyed because I learned so much more than I did in my undergrad outdoor recreation budgeting classes. The course I enjoyed, because it was just a fun course, was marketing. It really allows a level of creativity to be used for each assignment.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: My career path was set a long time ago. I was working at a summer camp in Lake of the Woods, Ontario, Canada, when my director told me he has a degree in recreation. I had never heard of such a thing. Come to find out (Eastern Washington University) had outdoor recreation as a degree, I graduated a few years later. During that time I had learned so much about the business side of the field, we became certified in everything we could; however, seasonal work was difficult and getting your foot in the door of government agencies or not-for-profits at an administrative level was extremely difficult without having more education or more experience. As recreation professionals know, this field changes every 7-10 years. Continuing education is a necessity. Going back to school and becoming a part of the AHS RST program has really helped in employment and immediate job advancement.

Q:Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: I owe a lot to my experience at AHS and I do believe it has led me to my current career choice. During college, I worked at the State Farm Center and Memorial Stadium and I would not have known about those positions without the College of Applied Health Sciences. It allowed me to network and let me know of positions that were available in event management. It ultimately lead me to finalize my decision on exactly what I wanted to be in addition to the qualities that I wanted and did not want to have as a leader in my field.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: My favorite on-campus experience was graduation, and meeting the professors I had only talked to online.

Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?

A: For me, AHS has allowed me the opportunity to work within the communities to help keep people active, children engaged, seniors mobile and social, and provide a service that are vital to the population we serve.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: alumni, Alumni Spotlight

NBA All-Star Weekend was a slam dunk for RST students

Feb. 20, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Responsibilities included preparing the NBA’s command center for visiting dignitaries

*RST junior Brendan Ross was part of a three-student crew working the NBA All-Star Game in Chicago in February*

Chatting with Bill Murray was a highlight. Seeing NBA owners such as Mark Cuban up close was dazzling. Finding themselves in a room with more than $1 million in NBA merchandise was overwhelming.

But for three students in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism, their five-day experience at the NBA All-Star Game in Chicago was about one thing.

“Helping people,” said Matt Maguire, a sophomore in the RST program.

Maguire, junior Brendan Ross, and sophomore Harry Figiel were hired to help NBA events coordinator Lauren Mroz—herself an Illinois College of Media grad—with the corporate services portion of the All-Star Game, arguably the sport’s most-important event of the season.

Responsibilities included preparing the NBA’s command center for visiting dignitaries such as league owners and celebrities, putting together gift baskets for stakeholders and delivering credentials and tickets across Chicago, Mroz said.

“All-Star Weekend is way more than just a game, obviously,” Mroz said. “They were very good at doing whatever needed to be done.”

Mroz was happy to have RST students in the employee candidate pool because though she was a College of Media student, she often took RST classes and even took one of professor Mike Raycraft’s RST 180 courses in which students visit some of the most iconic sport and tourism sites in the country.

Mroz explained that the students were hired by Zorm Event & Transportation Services, which works with the NBA on several events and whose owner is RST alum Kevin Mroz, Lauren’s brother. Zorm, contracted by the NBA, has hired Illini students such as Ross to work on other NBA events such as the Draft Combine.

While the All-Star Game experience involved “pretty typical office work” as Maguire described it, none of it seemed mundane or menial to the students.

“We were walking to the elevator and saw (Dallas Mavericks owner) Mark Cuban walk out and we’re just like, ‘this guy’s worth billions of dollars,’” Maguire said. “I talked with Bill Murray for like 15 seconds. That’s a huge highlight for me, I love Bill Murray. He’s one of my favorite actors. So it was really nice to just meet these people you would never meet in a normal circumstance and get to talk with them, even if it was only for a few seconds.”

Celebrity chef Guy Fieri, director Spike Lee, and Bears coach Matt Nagy were among the luminaries with whom students got to interact.

“The chance to talk to Spike Lee … we got to banter with him a little bit and just talk with him, and it was a great experience,” Ross said. “And it was just so cool just to be around there and be in a more professional setting but still get to see those very wealthy and famous people.”

All three students plan to pursue careers in the sports industry and they took lessons away from their NBA experience.

“I was like, whoa, there’s a lot more that goes on here than you would really think of,” Maguire said. “Normally everyone thinks ‘Oh, the glamor in sports, you get to work for playoff teams, stuff like that.’ But when we’re there, it’s 1 a.m., and we’re just doing stuff. It makes you realize that it’s not all glamor and there’s hard work that’s going to go into it, too.”

For Ross, it cemented his career plans.

“Ever since getting the opportunity to do the NBA Draft Combine last summer, I have put it in my head that I would like to work for the NBA,” he said. “So an opportunity like this was not just cool, but educational. And I learned so much.”

Figiel, who works for the Kankakee Daily Journal as an Illini sports beat writer and photojournalist, agreed.

“It was an intense experience,” he said. “I got to see the operation and even though we played a small role in it, just being a part of the experience from a work side as opposed to a fan side, you get a lot more information, and I will have a much better appreciation for those things in the future.”

Mroz said that was the lesson she hopes the students took out of the experience.

“You need to be willing to do whatever it takes to get your foot in the door,” she said. “To make those connections and build those relationships. They’re seeing what it takes to be doing what they could be doing, or they could see what they don’t want to be doing.”

Other highlights for the students included helping former NBA star Grant Hill find his room, seeing some of the participants of the NBA Rising Stars Game—including former Illini hoops star Kendrick Nunn—and seeing Aaron Gordon, who many believed should have won the All-Star Slam Dunk contest, check in. But for the RST students, they got just as much joy out of that as seeing people enjoy all the festivities.

“One of the coolest parts of the last week was that they gave each of us two tickets to each event,” Ross said. “These tickets are selling for insane amounts of money, but I get to call my buddy and say ‘Hey, grab somebody and get to Chicago and you’re going to go to the game.’

“And that was just so rewarding and awesome, and it felt good to give them that experience, but it felt good to watch them have such an awesome experience. That’s why sports are so awesome, and that’s why I want to be around sports.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

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Tags: alumni

Alumni Spotlight—Christian Perez

Feb. 29, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Alumni of the College of Applied Health Sciences have myriad career options thanks to the tremendous diversity of programs. We periodically will put the spotlight on an alum to find out what they’re doing now, what experiences they had and what AHS means to them. This week, we talk to Christian Perez, a 2015 Recreation, Sport and Tourism graduate who is now Senior Operations Coordinator, Fan Experience for the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer.

Q: Why did you pick AHS?

A: From a young age, I always had a fascination and passion for sports. My dream as a kid was to be a professional soccer player, but recognized early on that perhaps I didn’t have the full skillset to do it, but I knew I wanted to be involved in the game off the field. When it came time to apply for colleges, AHS made the most sense for the career path I wanted to take.

Q: Why did you pick RST?

A: I knew I wanted to be involved on the business side of sports, and the Sport Management program provided within RST caught my attention from the start. The atmosphere and family feel of RST and AHS made it a very comfortable environment to be in. You basically knew almost every one of your classmates since you were in 95 percent of the same classes every semester.

Q: Which professors had the most impact on you?

A: My academic advisor at the time, LoriKay Paden, played a big role in me wanting to stay in RST. As a freshman I had my doubts about the academic path I was on, but talking to LoriKay reassured me that I was making the right decision staying in RST. Dr. Michael Raycraft was someone that kept class interesting, even when he maybe knew that the material from that particular day in class wasn’t the most glamorous. He wasn’t afraid to put students on the spot in class when answering questions, which I am thankful for now. It’s always good to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Dr. Ryan Gower always had time to meet and chat with you, no matter what he was doing. I remember on days before class, my friends Tim, Tom and I would stop by his office and he was always down to chat or to tell us one his undergrad stories or how his kids were doing. That’s a personality trait that I hope I can replicate.

Q: What course did you most enjoy?

A: Not sure if it is still around, but RST 300 was my first introduction to real world experience. Events and Planning made us engage with outside businesses to put on an event from the bottom up and most of the skills I learned in that class, I can still apply today.

Q: Did you enter AHS knowing your career path, or did AHS help you decide?

A: I had an idea of the career path I wanted to take as far as being involved in the front office of a sports team. However, at the time I did not know that I wanted to get into game day and stadium operations, which is my current role. I always thought that I wanted to get into marketing, and to be honest it just sounded “cool” at the time, but really didn’t know what it entailed to be involved in marketing with a sports team. I was able to get an internship with a minor league baseball that first exposed me to stadium operations, but was not the biggest fan. When an opportunity for an operations internship came up with the Chicago Fire, I took it and haven’t looked back since.

Q:Did your AHS experience lead to your current job?

A: My AHS experience definitely helped prepare me for life after graduation. Being in RST helped build a foundation for what it means to be a business professional and how to market and network yourself to industry leaders. The skills I obtained from time management, communication and organization throughout my Illinois tenure definitely set me up for success post-undergrad.

Q: What was your favorite on-campus experience?

A: It is hard to narrow down a few experiences, let alone just one. That said, the friends I gained throughout my college experience will always be the best part about Illinois. Taking down No. 1-ranked Indiana basketball in 2012 will always be a good memory, though!

Q: What would you say to recommend AHS to a prospective student?

A: First and foremost, always try to keep an open mind! The close connections you can develop with your professors and staff can serve as a great steppingstone for your career post-undergrad. Being involved in a college like AHS gives you the opportunity to meet all your classmates, build relationships, and seek out your professors whenever you need them. Take advantage of being on a Big Ten campus and start to develop your professional network as early as possible, it never hurts to reach out to someone just ask some questions or to pick their brain.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

Tags: alumni, Alumni Spotlight

ORPR gets contract to study lake need in Springfield

Feb. 11, 2020 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The Office of Recreation and Park Resources (ORPR), a unit within the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Recreation, Sport and Tourism Department, was awarded a $90,000 contract by the Springfield City Council to study whether there is a need for a second lake in the city.

ORPR director K. David McCann said his office will “try to determine whether there’s an unmet aquatic outdoor recreation need for fishing, water skiing, swimming.”

The study was requested by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which last year said information provided by Springfield’s City Water Light & Power showing recreational demand for a second lake was insufficient.

McCann said ORPR won’t ultimately make a recommendation as to whether the second lake is needed. “We will provide information based on community surveys and analysis of existing outdoor aquatic opportunities to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for them to include in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Study that will be used to determine whether there is a need for this reservoir.”

The lake is part of a larger plan, McCann said, involving a backup water source. A recreational use of water was considered an ancillary benefit. “In order to create a reservoir there will need to be a dam constructed and that requires a permit from the US Army Corp of Engineers.”

The survey development and implementation will be conducted by professors from the University of Illinois – Springfield Institute for Illinois Public Finance, Dr. Kenneth Kriz, and Dr. Travis Bland.

The study is expected to be completed by August. The lake would cost about $125 million to construct, according to the utility’s latest estimates, and would take about one year to design the lake and about two years to construct.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.

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Tags: ORPR

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ORPR director K. David McCann said his office will “try to determine whether there’s an unmet acquatic outdoor recreation need for fishing, water skiing, swimming.”

McCann said ORPR won’t ultimately make a recommendation as to whether the second lake is needed. “We will provide information based on community surveys and analysis of existing outdoor acquatic opportunities to the US Army Corps of Engineers, for them to include in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Study that will be used to determine whether there is a need for this reservoir.”