Category: Recreation, Sport, and Tourism

Long-time RST faculty member Espeseth remembered for work and friendship

May 22, 2024 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Bob Espeseth was an RST faculty member for three decades (Photo provided)

It’s no surprise that a man who was as outgoing as Bob Espeseth dedicated his life to creating opportunities for others to be outdoors.

“When we grew up, we were always doing stuff, always camping a lot, being outdoors,” said Robert Espeseth, one of Bob’s five children with wife Mary Anne. “That was just us. Part of the trips was to get to see the country … we got to grow up seeing a lot of the parks and a lot of the country and different things. 

“He was always happy to meet everybody. He went out of his way when he traveled to look up people and stop in and visit, or at the very least call when he was in the area.”

Espeseth, who was a faculty member in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at Illinois from 1973-95, died on Dec. 15, 2023 at the age of 93. 

Espeseth grew up in Wisconsin and earned a degree in landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin, all while serving in the ROTC. Espeseth’s ROTC commitment sent him into the Navy, where he was on active duty for three years. He was an ensign in the Navy when he was the films officer for the USS Purdy, a destroyer that traveled around the world to provide support in the Korean War.

“After he got out of the Navy, he went back and got his master’s degree, and then he started working for the Wisconsin parks system,” son Robert said. “He was instrumental in developing and modernizing a lot of the Wisconsin State Parks, the rails to trails.”

Espeseth also worked in parks administration in Michigan before coming to the University of Illinois, where he was a professor of leisure studies. Colleagues remembered him as warm and helpful.

“He was kind and fun-loving. He was very quick to laugh. Most of my memories are I would go for a run in the morning and he and Mary Ann would walk from their house on Healy Street down to Prospect Avenue.”

RST faculty member Kim Shinew

“And they were standing in front of this tree on Healy one day. And just something about it made me stop, which was unusual. When I run, I usually don’t stop. I stopped, and he said, ‘Do you know what kind of tree this is? And I said, ‘I have no idea, Bob. And he said, ‘It’s a ginkgo tree. They lose their leaves in one day.’ And he said, ‘Long after I’m not around, when you go by this tree, you think of me. And I always have. I always just thought of him when I ever go by that tree.”

In addition to his academic endeavors, Espeseth volunteered for more than 45 years for the Champaign County Forest Preserve District, first as an elected official and later as a foundation board member. His volunteer work and philanthropic endeavors played a significant role in establishing and caring for nearly 4,000 acres of preserves, the Museum of the Grand Prairie, and the Kickapoo Rail Trail.

“He knew the important role that public parks and places like forest preserves, the role that they play in overall life satisfaction and quality of life and places of exercise,” Shinew said. “I know that he really valued and appreciated the outdoors. He was an advocate for that in communities.”

“When I came and Bill McKinney was the (RST) department head, Bill’s area was public parks and recreation. Bob played a big role in that.”

Even now, Shinew said, the connection between landscape architecture and community planning and engagement—two other significant RST industry fields—is significant, a testament to Espeseth’s pioneering work.

Espeseth was also, not surprisingly, an advocate for environmental causes and helped to launch the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, which support coastal, marine and Great Lakes communities through research, extension and education. The Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, one of 34 Sea Grants in the United States, is focused on the southern Lake Michigan region—104 miles of heavily urbanized and industrialized shoreline in Illinois and Indiana. Espeseth was at the helm of IISG from 1982 through 1994. 

But family and greenspace were really Espeseth’s loves. He was part of the National Parks and Recreation Association, and thanks to that, he took his family on many trips.

“We stopped at every state park and national park in the country,” Robert said. “Well, he would pose us, all of us—my brothers and I—in front of the sign to the park, the entrance to the park to take a picture of the entrance. Part of it was he wanted this file of information, but then he also could use it as family pictures. We used to joke that our father has the best collection of park entrances and bathrooms, because he’d always shoot the restroom facilities, how they were designed, how they were landscaped with natural stone or other things. 

“So we’re posed in front of stuff, whether it was in Yosemite, whether it was Yellowstone, whether it was in Grand Teton, whether it was in Craters of the Moon Park, you name it. We used to joke he has the most amazing collection of bathroom pictures in the United States. 

“That was how practical and frugal he was.” 

Tags:

Related news

How Black distance runners shaped the sport from the shadows

May 22, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

While Black American athletes such as basketball’s Bill Russell, baseball’s Jackie Robinson and tennis’s Althea Gibson received significant coverage in the newspapers of the day, ‘marathoning was on the margins’

Long-distance runner Ted Corbitt, center, was the first Black American to represent the U.S. in the Olympic marathon. (Photo provided)

The world of competitive long-distance running took off in the 1970s. But stories of the sport’s Black architects and pioneers who laid its foundation have been largely untold for decades. 

Teaching Assistant Professor Jake Fredericks in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois has dedicated a significant part of his research to uncovering the legacies of successful Black long-distance runners who grew the sport “from the shadows” while challenging enduring racial stereotypes. 

“The explosion of running in the 1970s could not have happened without the efforts of the earlier generation, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, to lay the groundwork for the races in the first place,” Fredericks said. “These are the men who established the marathon courses or put the structures in place for organizations that could support bigger and bigger races.” 

This Memorial Day Weekend, he’ll co-lead a panel presentation on Black running history to an academic audience at a conference for the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). Fredericks will present papers alongside Gary Corbitt, an archivist and son of legendary long-distance competitor Ted Corbitt, and Suzuko Morikawa, associate professor of History and Africana Studies at Chicago State University. 

Dave Wiggins, the former NASSH president and professor emeritus from George Mason University, will co-moderate the discussion. 

Fredericks’ paper, titled “When is it Okay to Run Around Your Neighborhood in Shorts?: Representations of Black Running at the National Marathon Championship,” examines the country’s perceptions of race and long-distance running through the prism of the AAU National Championship in Yonkers, New York, the nation’s second-oldest marathon.

From 1938 until 1966, Yonkers was the site of the country’s preeminent championship marathon race, and several Black American runners—such as Louis White, Ted Corbitt and Harold Harris—posted some of its best times, more than a decade before long-distance running grew beyond its niche, community-driven status.  

While Black American athletes such as basketball’s Bill Russell, baseball’s Jackie Robinson and tennis’s Althea Gibson received significant coverage in the newspapers of the day, “marathoning was on the margins,” Fredericks said. 

In 1952, Corbitt became the first Black American to represent the United States in the Olympic marathon. Two years later, Corbitt was crowned champion in the 1954 National Marathon Championship. 

“That victory is so sparsely covered across the newspapers in the United States, that he’s mostly forgotten. Ted Corbitt is not a name that we often say alongside Jackie Robinson, even though they’re competing at the same time and had similar levels of success,” Fredericks said. “My research looks at how these Black Americans really shaped the sport, even from the shadows.” 

Chicago’s Harris posted his best performance in the 1964 Yonkers Marathon, finishing fourth—just one spot removed from a bid to compete in that year’s Summer Olympics. 

Compared to the more “glamorous” track and field events such as sprints and jumps, long-distance running lacked institutional support, Fredericks said. So, in 1958, many of the sport’s top competitors formed the Road Runners Club of America, opening chapters with running enthusiasts in major American cities. 

Harris became one of the founding members of the Midwest Road Runners branch based in Chicago, which fostered a multiracial community of runners in the city, Fredericks said. Meanwhile, based in New York City, Corbitt pioneered techniques to measure more accurately the 26.2-mile marathon races.

Back when Harris competed, marathons were lucky to run 100 participants, Fredericks said. The “marathon boom” of the 1970s changed all of that. 

A confluence of factors led to marathoning, and running writ large, to hit the mainstream. Medical science backing the health benefits of exercise had steadily grown while Cold War-era pressures to increase Americans’ fitness continued. Then, in 1972, Frank Shorter won the marathon at the Munich Games, scoring the United States’ first gold medal in the event since 1908, and first medal since 1924. 

Ted Corbitt is not a name that we often say alongside Jackie Robinson, even though they’re competing at the same time and had similar levels of success.

Jake Fredericks

Teaching Assistant Professor, RST

Shorter’s success was lionized in the media, and his profile—a white, educated American man—suddenly became the prototypical image of the long-distance runner. 

“We lose the image of Ted Corbitt, who could have just as easily been the image of running, or somebody like Harold Harris, in Chicago, could have been the image of running,” Fredericks said. Those kinds of pioneering figures get replaced throughout the ‘70s, by a Frank Shorter-esque, well-to-do upper middle-class person.” 

The lack of recognition these Black American pioneers faced also played into athletic racial stereotypes. Fredericks’ dissertation, “Great Speed and Great Stamina,” in part challenged the lasting notion that Black athletes were “built” for explosive, powerful feats but couldn’t win in tests of endurance. 

The stereotype seemed to build from the sport of boxing, where analysts alleged that Black fighters couldn’t “go the distance” in the ring. Jesse Owens’ prodigious success in the sprints and long jump Olympic events of the 1930s shattered racial barriers in the sporting world but reinforced some of the same athletic stereotypes that dogged Black American athletes of the day. 

These Black runners’ success, however, “disproves these stereotypes that, unfortunately, have lasted 100 years. They’ve just been so hard to remove in the minds of the public,” Fredericks said. 

Part of the mission of Fredericks’ research, along with Gary Corbitt’s new Ted Corbitt Institute for Running History Research, is to document the history of the sport’s development more accurately and recognize the oft-forgotten figures who laid its framework. 

What stands out to Fredericks is many of these early organizers’ foresight: “They knew that road running had this potential to engage the masses,” he said. Even when races were lucky to field a dozen runners, they kept pushing to host events and spread the word. 

“Black Americans are a huge part of the story of long-distance running. Today, we reap the benefits of their efforts to establish and grow the sport of running, yet that part of the history often gets left out.” 

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: , ,

Related news

Get to Know: Miki Sato, RST assistant professor

March 07, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Get to Know: Miki Sato, assistant professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the College of Applied Health Sciences

Miki Sato (Photo provided)

Miki Sato joined the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2020, after six years at James Madison University. 

How would you describe your primary research interests?  

My primary line of research focuses on exploring how and why engagement in sport-related consumption activities, such as sport participation and sport spectatorship, can contribute to improved health, health-related behaviors, and overall well-being. 

I have conducted research in various sport settings, including participatory sport events (e.g., running events, walking events), fitness clubs, spectator sport events, and the Olympic Games.

What are you working on right now?

I am involved in research projects that examine the health benefits of sport participation and park and recreational facility availability within communities. Additionally, we are working on projects that explore the distinct roles of various sport participation locations, such as parks, fitness clubs, and community recreation centers, in promoting sport participation behaviors and enhancing well-being.

Regarding sport spectatorship, we are conducting projects that examine how engagement in professional sporting events, both through behavioral live spectating and psychological identification with professional sport teams, is associated with consumer well-being. We recently published a paper that provides evidence supporting sport spectatorship as a form of experiential consumption that fosters happiness among sport fans.

What’s a fun fact you’d like to share about yourself? What do you like to do in your free time?

I am a big fan of track and field and long-distance running. One of my childhood idols was Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in sprint and long-jump events. I am also a recreational runner. 

Since moving to Illinois, I have participated in the Illinois Marathon’s 10k race twice. The event was incredibly well-organized, and I recommend it to runners of all levels, from novices to experienced athletes!

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: , ,

Related news

Outdoor Recreation Consortium: An RST trip to the Smokies—for class credit

April 03, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

After a long hiatus, Illinois is back in the fold for the Outdoor Recreation Consortium

Assistant Professor Nick Pitas (first row on left) poses with RST 199 students at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute in Tennessee.

Kiara Frausto thinks she might’ve been “kind of spoiled” in her first visit to a national park. 

That’s because the University of Illinois junior was treated to a week full of hands-dirty field research at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute—where students banded birds, caught salamanders and listened to Appalachian folk stories—and it all counted for course credit. 

“It’s probably going to be hard to beat this one,” Frausto said. “Now I want to see all the other national parks.” 

Buses full of students from seven universities rolled into the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont in Tennessee just after spring break, ready for a week of experiential learning in the country’s most visited national park. 

For the first time in more than a decade, University of Illinois students got to join the group, known as the Outdoor Recreation Consortium. The roster of involved universities has shifted over the years; Illinois dropped out years ago without a faculty member to run the trip. 

But now, with second-year Recreation, Sport and Tourism Assistant Professor Nick Pitas at the helm, Illinois has returned to the fold. 

This year, nine students took the eight-week RST 199 course: Outdoor Recreation Consortium, which culminated in a six-day stayaway visit to the Smokies. 

Students and faculty from six other schools took part this year, including Penn State University, North Carolina State, East Carolina, University of Missouri, Texas A&M and Western Illinois.

Pitas is well-traveled alumnus of the course, which has been around in some form for 46 years. He enrolled and visited the Smokies while he was a student at Penn State, then rejoined the trip as a teaching assistant—twice—before eventually teaching it as a faculty member. 

“This was my fifth time going,” Pitas said. “But first time as a faculty here at Illinois.” 

What kept him returning to the trip were the rich, hands-on experiences that embodied all the concepts the course had prepared them for. Once in the Smokies, students hear from real National Park Service rangers and administrators, natural resource scientists and community partners, all while assisting them with field research data collection. 

At Illinois, RST 199’s eight week were spent introducing students to the operations of a national park, through its history and cultural context, the wide biodiversity in the region, and the management of the park’s record visitor numbers. Students also broke off into “committees” to help organize the trip, from transportation logistics all the way to morale-boosting exercises. 

“From a professional standpoint, I think it opens their eyes, hopefully, to the breadth of opportunities that are available in the outdoor recreation, natural resource, and tourism space,” Pitas said. “But the bulk of the learning is when we’re there. It’s like going to summer camp except with an extra learning component baked into it.” 

Michela Ossola, a senior in natural resources and environmental sciences at ACES, helped map the ideal driving route to the Tremont Institute in Blount County, Tennessee. Once there, daily trips to the forest and engaging learning sessions kept the time flying by.

“It’s a week detox of being off your phone, and every evening we’d have people come by, folk storytellers, folk music, a bear caller. A lot of those things you don’t get for free these days,” Ossola said. “It’s definitely a highlight in the four years I’ve gone to U of I.” 

Many of the students this year, like Ossola and Frausto, came from the College of ACES. Undergrad students in the college are required to complete a field experience before they graduate. 

But Pitas would like to grow the number of Applied Health Sciences students who come through the class, like Genna Peters, a junior in RST who’s interested in pursuing an outdoor recreation career post-graduation. 

Peters loved getting to know the professionals from the Appalachia area, like a park ranger who was enrolled in the Western Cherokee tribe and mingling with students from all the other universities. 

“The biggest experience for me being around all these other people my age who shared in the same interest and wanted to go into the same field as me,” she said. “It was really cool to know this park has this giant history of all these different people who work there, but they also really truly treasure the culture and history of the park itself.” 

As much as the field knowledge broadens horizons for the students who go, Pitas knows the relationships they build are just as important. 

“It’s not always the case that an adult has a chance to have a camp experience and just go and be with people they know and people they don’t know, and have that of connection and experience together,” Pitas said. 

“I feel very lucky to have the chance to do it, would be my overarching feeling this semester. This is awesome. Can’t believe I get to do this for work.” 

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

Share on social

Tags:

Related news

AHS Get to Know: Miki Sato, Ph.D.

March 07, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Miki Sato joined the College of Applied Health Sciences in 2020, after six years at James Madison University.

Miki Sato, assistant professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism (Photo provided)

How would you describe your primary research interests?  

My primary line of research focuses on exploring how and why engagement in sport-related consumption activities, such as sport participation and sport spectatorship, can contribute to improved health, health-related behaviors, and overall well-being. 

I have conducted research in various sport settings, including participatory sport events (e.g., running events, walking events), fitness clubs, spectator sport events, and the Olympic Games.

What are you working on right now?

I am involved in research projects that examine the health benefits of sport participation and park and recreational facility availability within communities. Additionally, we are working on projects that explore the distinct roles of various sport participation locations, such as parks, fitness clubs, and community recreation centers, in promoting sport participation behaviors and enhancing well-being.

Regarding sport spectatorship, we are conducting projects that examine how engagement in professional sporting events, both through behavioral live spectating and psychological identification with professional sport teams, is associated with consumer well-being. We recently published a paper that provides evidence supporting sport spectatorship as a form of experiential consumption that fosters happiness among sport fans.

What’s a fun fact you’d like to share about yourself? What do you like to do in your free time?

I am a big fan of track and field and long-distance running. One of my childhood idols was Carl Lewis, who won nine Olympic gold medals in sprint and long-jump events. I am also a recreational runner. 

Since moving to Illinois, I have participated in the Illinois Marathon’s 10k race twice. The event was incredibly well-organized, and I recommend it to runners of all levels, from novices to experienced athletes!

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: ,

Related news

Fredericks: How Black American distance runners shaped the sport from the shadows

Feb. 29, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

Black American distance runners played a pivotal role in the sport’s early growth. A professor in Recreation, Sport and Tourism is helping to uncover their hidden histories.

Ted Corbitt (bib #999) runs in the 1952 Olympic marathon in Helsinki, Finland. Retrieved from the International Olympic Committee database.

The world of competitive long-distance running took off in the 1970s. But stories of the sport’s Black architects and pioneers who laid its foundation have been largely untold for decades. 

Teaching Assistant Professor Jake Fredericks in the Department of Recreation, Sport and Tourism at the University of Illinois has dedicated a significant part of his research to uncovering the legacies of successful Black long-distance runners who grew the sport “from the shadows” while challenging enduring racial stereotypes. 

“The explosion of running in the 1970s could not have happened without the efforts of the earlier generation, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, to lay the groundwork for the races in the first place,” Fredericks said. “These are the men who established the marathon courses or put the structures in place for organizations that could support bigger and bigger races.” 

This Memorial Day Weekend, he’ll co-lead a panel presentation on Black running history to an academic audience at a conference for the North American Society for Sport History (NASSH). Fredericks will present papers alongside Gary Corbitt, an archivist and son of legendary long-distance competitor Ted Corbitt, and Suzuko Morikawa, associate professor of History and Africana Studies at Chicago State University. 

Dave Wiggins, the former NASSH president and professor emeritus from George Mason University, will co-moderate the discussion. 

Fredericks’ paper, titled “When is it Okay to Run Around Your Neighborhood in Shorts?: Representations of Black Running at the National Marathon Championship,” examines the country’s perceptions of race and long-distance running through the prism of the AAU National Championship in Yonkers, New York, the nation’s second-oldest marathon.

From 1938 until 1966, Yonkers was the site of the country’s preeminent championship marathon race, and several Black American runners—such as Louis White, Ted Corbitt and Harold Harris—posted some of its best times, more than a decade before long-distance running grew beyond its niche, community-driven status.  

While Black American athletes such as basketball’s Bill Russell, baseball’s Jackie Robinson and tennis’s Althea Gibson received significant coverage in the newspapers of the day, “marathoning was on the margins,” Fredericks said. 

In 1952, Corbitt became the first Black American to represent the United States in the Olympic marathon. Two years later, Corbitt was crowned champion in the 1954 National Marathon Championship. 

“That victory is so sparsely covered across the newspapers in the United States, that he’s mostly forgotten. Ted Corbitt is not a name that we often say alongside Jackie Robinson, even though they’re competing at the same time and had similar levels of success,” Fredericks said. “My research looks at how these Black Americans really shaped the sport, even from the shadows.” 

Chicago’s Harris posted his best performance in the 1964 Yonkers Marathon, finishing fourth—just one spot removed from a bid to compete in that year’s Summer Olympics. 

Compared to the more “glamorous” track and field events such as sprints and jumps, long-distance running lacked institutional support, Fredericks said. So, in 1958, many of the sport’s top competitors formed the Road Runners Club of America, opening chapters with running enthusiasts in major American cities. 

Harris became one of the founding members of the Midwest Road Runners branch based in Chicago, which fostered a multiracial community of runners in the city, Fredericks said. Meanwhile, based in New York City, Corbitt pioneered techniques to measure more accurately the 26.2-mile marathon races.

Ted Corbitt is not a name that we often say alongside Jackie Robinson, even though they’re competing at the same time and had similar levels of success. My research looks at how these Black Americans really shaped the sport, even from the shadows.

Jacob Fredericks

Teaching Assistant Professor of Recreation, Sport and Tourism

Back when Harris competed, marathons were lucky to run 100 participants, Fredericks said. The “marathon boom” of the 1970s changed all of that. 

A confluence of factors led to marathoning, and running writ large, to hit the mainstream. Medical science backing the health benefits of exercise had steadily grown while Cold War-era pressures to increase Americans’ fitness continued. Then, in 1972, Frank Shorter won the marathon at the Munich Games, scoring the United States’ first gold medal in the event since 1908, and first medal since 1924. 

Shorter’s success was lionized in the media, and his profile—a white, educated American man—suddenly became the prototypical image of the long-distance runner. 

“We lose the image of Ted Corbitt, who could have just as easily been the image of running, or somebody like Harold Harris, in Chicago, could have been the image of running,” Fredericks said. “Those kinds of pioneering figures get replaced throughout the ‘70s, by a Frank Shorter-esque, well-to-do upper middle-class person.” 

The lack of recognition these Black American pioneers faced also played into athletic racial stereotypes. Fredericks’ dissertation, “Great Speed and Great Stamina,” in part challenged the lasting notion that Black athletes were “built” for explosive, powerful feats but couldn’t win in tests of endurance. 

The stereotype seemed to build from the sport of boxing, where analysts alleged that Black fighters couldn’t “go the distance” in the ring. Jesse Owens’ prodigious success in the sprints and long jump Olympic events of the 1930s shattered racial barriers in the sporting world but reinforced some of the same athletic stereotypes that dogged Black American athletes of the day. 

These Black runners’ success, however, “disproves these stereotypes that, unfortunately, have lasted 100 years. They’ve just been so hard to remove in the minds of the public,” Fredericks said. 

Part of the mission of Fredericks’ research, along with Gary Corbitt’s new Ted Corbitt Institute for Running History Research, is to document the history of the sport’s development more accurately and recognize the oft-forgotten figures who laid its framework. 

What stands out to Fredericks is many of these early organizers’ foresight: “They knew that road running had this potential to engage the masses,” he said. Even when races were lucky to field a dozen runners, they kept pushing to host events and spread the word. 

“Black Americans are a huge part of the story of long-distance running. Today, we reap the benefits of their efforts to establish and grow the sport of running, yet that part of the history often gets left out.” 

Editor’s note:

To reach Jacob Fredericks, email jfred@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: , ,

Related news

RST Alumni Collaborate on Children’s Book

Dec. 12, 2024 | Sam Rink

Two graduates of the Recreation, Sport and Tourism online master’s program never met in person, but it didn’t stop them from collaborating on a book.

Some find online classes to be isolating, but for two graduates of the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Recreation, Sport and Tourism online master’s program, the opposite was true. Charlie Hoffmann and Sean Baptist got to know each other while participating in the program in 2023, and it led to an artistic collaboration.

Hoffmann and Baptist, who have never met in person, spent the past year writing “Your First Ski Trip! A Kid’s Guide For Your First Ski Adventure,” an illustrated children’s book centering around ski and snowboarding knowledge and safety. 

“We live a couple hours away from each other, but we’ve never been in the same room,” Hoffmann said. “And we both kind of have that same RST philosophy where we’re happy to do a million hours of work, just so kids—young people—can enjoy themselves.”

Hoffmann and Baptist both had established careers in the recreation-sport-tourism industry before they chose to enroll in the online master’s program in 2022, but they came from very different backgrounds. Hoffmann, currently the director of recreation for the Borough of Rumson, New Jersey, found his love for recreation studies organizing basketball tournaments for his friends as a child.

Baptist, on the other hand, has a background in art, working as a freelance illustrator before he transitioned into children’s books. He got involved in community programming in New York City after taking on a position as an art educator with the parks department and subsequently helping start a rugby program.

“I decided I wanted to devote myself to recreation and public programs,” Baptist said. 

So what drew them together?      

They connected over skiing and snowboarding in their final semester in the program. Hoffmann got hooked on skiing at age 11, ran a ski club at a high school for several years as part of his career in recreation and still skis and rides for leisure today. Baptist said he didn’t click with skiing initially, but after falling in love with skateboarding, his father convinced him to get back on the slopes in his home state of Michigan and try snowboarding. It quickly became a passion. 

The idea for the book wasn’t a new one. When Hoffmann led the ski club, he noticed how little families knew about the sport. “I heard people say, ‘How come a chair is moving? What does ski patrol do? What’s a black diamond?’ And that’s when I was like, ‘Wow. People really don’t know this.’ And the concept sat in my brain for a long time before it got to paper.”

So, when Baptist talked about his love of snowboarding and background as an illustrator to their shared class, it only made sense to collaborate. 

“Light bulbs went off in my head because I had the book partially written,” Hoffmann said. “I went online and looked at some of his stuff, and it was so perfectly in line with what I was looking for.”

Both of them are excited to be able to share their passion with other kids through this book in the same way they do running public sport and recreation programs in their careers.

“When a cool project comes across my desk, I’ll jump on it and say, ‘Hey, this is something I want to be a part of,” Baptist said. “I really want to educate people on how to safely do this, and how it can be fun, and everything they need to experience.”

They credit the RST online master’s program for bringing them together and elevating their knowledge and network as RST professionals. Hoffmann said he particularly enjoyed the collaborative work he did in the program as a contrast to his day-to-day work life. 

“I’m literally a department of one,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to play well with others in the sandbox, but it was so much better, because they [other students] bring more to the table than I do.”

The convenience of an online education allowed Baptist to maintain his career and life in New York. Being in a master’s program has also proved useful for pursuing employment in parks, a field in which he didn’t have much experience.

“The program was not only rapidly catching me up with everyone else, but Illinois has just been the gift that keeps on giving,” he said. “And it just kind of opened up this world of opportunity where people were like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s an achievement on its own, that this guy’s in grad school.’”

The two still haven’t met in person, but their shared experience in the program led to a friendship and fulfilling professional collaboration for both. The book’s unlikely conception is due not only to their time at Illinois, but the values and passions that brought them to the program in the first place.

“We kind of share that mentality of just doing selfless acts just to help others fall in love with stuff like we did,” Hoffmann said.

Share on social

Tags: , ,

Related news

Spurred to succeed: RST alum Larson knows importance of dedication to his craft

Feb. 02, 2025 | Adelyn Mui

RST alum Josh Larson is general manager of the Austin Spurs, the G-League affiliate of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs. (Photo provided)

Many sports fans only see the athletes arriving at games, ready to take the court. However, the logistical and behind-the-scenes work often goes unnoticed. When a plane is delayed, causing the team to miss a connecting flight, or someone arrives 20 minutes late, it’s Josh Larson’s responsibility to ensure everything continues running smoothly.

That emphasis on service and hard work has propelled Larson to where he is today. He was immersed in basketball, almost from birth. His mother, Jenny, was an assistant athletic director at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and his brother played basketball collegiately. Today, Josh Larson serves as the general manager of the Austin Spurs, the G-League affiliate of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs.

Raised in Tolono, Illinois, Larson attended the University of Illinois, where he earned a B.S. in Recreation, Sport and Tourism. 

“What you learn in college isn’t necessarily all the Xs and Os of sports like how to coach basketball, how to work a salary cap, how to negotiate contracts and things like that,” Larson said. “To me, what was really beneficial, and I think it applies to not only my profession but a lot of other ones, was how they teach you to problem solve.”

Although the fast-paced lifestyle might seem stressful, Larson sees it as a rewarding challenge. 

“That’s kind of the beauty of sports in general, or even recreation. It’s never perfect,” Larson said. “You have to be able to think, do things your own way, problem-solve and figure out how you feel best fits your team, your culture, your park district.”

Larson emphasized that the RST program equips students to handle real-world situations. One hallmark of the program is its focus on practical experience. Reflecting on his coursework, Larson recalled a group project where he and his peers organized a kids’ day for the Stephens Family YMCA in Champaign.

“That was a good reminder of what it means to be service driven,” Larson said. “In the moment, you think, ‘Group project,’ and you have to go hang out with kids for four hours, and I probably wasn’t as excited to do it. But I felt like afterwards, I got a lot out of it, purely because it forced me to be in a mindset of serving others.”

After his sophomore year, he landed a summer internship with the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets. Through that experience, he made connections with the Spurs organization, which led to an internship in Austin after graduation. However, Larson noted that it didn’t begin with fun and glamour.

“You just do the laundry, you do the film, you do all the grunt work, and drive the players and vans … and clean apartments,” Larson said. 

He then spent two years as the basketball operations assistant for the San Antonio Spurs before becoming the general manager of the Austin Spurs last May. His current responsibilities include managing players and coaches and supporting the coaching staff with resources for team building and player development.

Larson’s dedication to basketball was evident long before he entered the professional world. He started volunteering at Illinois men’s basketball summer camps the summer before he began college, eventually becoming a team manager for four years and serving as head manager his senior year. His relentless work ethic caught the attention of the coaching staff, and through networking within the program, he was able to make key connections that helped propel his career forward.

Jenny Larson said dedication has always been a part of her son’s work ethic.

“He was the first one in the office when he interned at the Charlotte Hornets, and he was the last one to leave,” Jenny Larson said. “It’ll be 7 at night when I call him, and he’d say, ‘I’m still in the office,’ and I’d ask him, ‘Why are you still in the office?’ and he’d say, ‘Because my boss hasn’t left.”

Josh showed his dedication to his mom on another occasion when he was in high school and met with Mike Raycraft, a clinical associate professor in the RST program. Raycraft helped Larson figure out his interests and potential career paths. 

“He dressed up in a suit. He’s a junior in high school and he walks into meeting him, and he’s serious,” Jenny Larson said. “Josh put himself out there. He had to be extremely nervous, going in and talking to a professor. But he did it and I know it helped him grow and get to where he is today.”

Josh Larson said Raycraft was one of the most influential figures in his career. 

“For him to do that, it meant a lot to me,” Larson said. “He was a massive influence, not only going to the university, but even after I got there. His care and attention to his students, not only with me, but you could see it with other people too.”

Another enduring takeaway from the RST program was its strong sense of community. Larson said he frequently encounters former classmates while traveling for work.

“A lot of people—we stay in touch still, so I think that, again, is a testament to the quality of people that the major tracks,” Larson said. “You get to have lifelong connections with people that you know you’re going to be working with. You can call for advice—they know what you’re going through and they can probably give you better advice than anybody.” 

Larson explained that the program introduces students to diverse perspectives, which become invaluable when collaborating with others in the future.

“Even aside from just the classes and the curriculum that you learn, I think the people you meet is what makes it worth the while in the end,” Larson said.

Share on social

Tags: , ,

Related news

RST student startup built to help venues stay booked

Jan. 10, 2024 | Ethan Simmons

An RST alumnus developed a digital platform to help venues maximize their booking potential.

Atop the usual final exams and projects, University of Illinois senior Sean Chang has been charting a different path for his final year in the Recreation, Sport and Tourism program—by building his own business.

With the help of mentors and the entrepreneurial ecosystem at the U. of I., Chang is growing “DoubleSpot,” a digital platform designed to help venues maximize their booking potential.

The business officially launched this summer, and already partners with venues such as the I-Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign, Bedford Park’s Wintrust Sports Complex, and campus cafe BrewLab.

“When we talk about video, we talk about YouTube—my long-term goal is when people think of venues or events, I want them to think about DoubleSpot,” Chang said.

The senior’s ambitious idea has found catalysts through the iVenture Accelerator, an entrepreneurial bootcamp designed to kickstart U. of I. students’ startups, and in guidance from RST faculty members, such as Interim Associate Dean for Undergraduate and Graduate Affairs and former RST department head Carla Santos, who’ve dispensed their industry expertise and helped Chang connect with potential clients.

“[Sean] embodies that entrepreneurial spirit of RST,” Santos said. “We’re constantly reminding our students that while we are training you to go into this field, we’re training you to take risks, to reimagine what the field could look like.”

Chang grew up in Taiwan, but moved to California when he was a junior in high school when his father got a job at tech giant Nvidia.

“It was a new beginning for me,” he said. “Moving to a new country was completely different for sure, like culture, friends, school, everything.”

He fortunately joined his high school’s varsity basketball team, which helped him integrate within his new home, find friends and grow his love for sport.

When time came to apply for college, Chang wasn’t sure what he wanted for his future. He wanted to balance his desire for a career in the sports industry with the stability his family sought for him, he said. Chang applied for sports management programs, with the United States’ huge entertainment market in mind.

“There’s not a lot of Asian Americans in this field and I want to prove that if other people can do it, why can’t I do it? I think this kind of mentality has always been pushing me,” Chang said.

Illinois became his lead college option for its global reputation. Many famous Illinois graduates from his native Taiwan, such as YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, had cited the school as a powerful starting point. He went for the RST program in the College of Applied Health Sciences and obtained his family’s blessing by minoring in computer science.

“The U. of I.’s kind of a perfect match for me,” Chang said. “RST gives us a lot of opportunity to do what we like, and the faculty and professors are super supportive.”

Chang quickly made connections with faculty, including retired RST adjunct instructor Don Hardin, who had more than 30 years of NCAA volleyball coaching experience at the University of Louisville and the University of Illinois, where he was the head coach of the women’s team.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit during Chang’s freshman year and changed his course. He took a gap year to visit National Taiwan University, where he studied computer science and clarified his career goals.

“I figured entrepreneurship could be a good fit for me, I have the sports background, CS knowledge, and something we can bounce together,” he said. Plus, “U. of I. has a really good entrepreneurship ecosystem.”

With more professional knowledge, Chang started to dip his toes into the startup world. After returning to the U. of I., he engineered “Courtero,” a community basketball app designed to help players find games near them.

In 2022, he landed a summer job with the Los Angeles Dodgers as a business strategy analytics intern—essentially helping the team find more ways to generate revenue.

His idea for DoubleSpot first flashed in the walls of Dodger Stadium. Since the stadium only hosts 81 home games per season, he thought, what could all this square footage be used for in the downtime?

“Imagine people want to have their wedding in center field, or have their kids at a VIP lounge?” Chang said.

Sean Chang. (Provided)

He returned to campus with the idea fresh in his mind, finding early users for DoubleSpot in area park districts and local vendor CRS Hospitality, which owns several venues in the Champaign-Urbana area.

The pitch: For a small vendor fee, businesses can use DoubleSpot to drive users and event-planners to use the promoted venues on the site, or hopefully “double” their “spot’s” utilization rate, as Chang put it.

Landing a spot in the recent iVenture Accelerator cohort alongside several other student startups was “such a privilege,” Chang said. With the program’s extra time, resources, and mentoring opportunities, his team at DoubleSpot has catapulted its efforts.

“Sean and his team were culture-setters over the summer,” said Mayank Mehta, assistant director of entrepreneurial education at iVenture. “At every given time, you could see their team focused on developing their product. Whether it was during lunch, morning updates, and even after people had left for the day—someone was coding away.

“A lot of people’s passion shines in the way they talk about their idea, but Sean and DoubleSpot’s passion shines through in how they work on their idea.”

What’s driven the startup’s early success is a “customer-centric approach,” Mehta said, which solved a direct problem these vendors were facing. As for finding these vendors, RST faculty such as Santos have been a valuable resource to his team.

The Wintrust Sports Complex in Bedford Park has been an important early adopter of DoubleSpot, using the service to help digitalize its venue management process, Chang said. The complex is run by Chief Business Officer Joe Ronovsky, a two-time graduate of the U of I’s RST program.

Santos and Chang’s conversations have revolved around the ‘human component’ of building a business: how can you sell this product and what will you bring to the table that others won’t? Who from the RST alumni base could help him out?

Chang has a sponge-like ability to absorb information from mentors’ meetings, quickly implementing important slices of advice into his business, Santos said.

And yet, “Sean doesn’t really need mentoring,” Santos said. “He’s very self-directed and he knows what he’s doing. In our meetings, I hope I’ve given him as much as I’ve gotten out of it, to be quite honest.”

“He wants to deliver a product that makes a difference in not just the operation side of things but building a sense of community through using spaces more efficiently.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Ethan Simmons, email ecsimmon@illinois.edu.
 

Tags: , , , , ,

Related news

RST Staff Spotlight: Tim Tiger

The College of Applied Health Sciences has an array of faculty that are renowned in their areas of research and instruction. But AHS would not be able to operate as efficiently without its staff, who are the backbone of this great college. Periodically, we will shine the light on one of these staffers so their colleagues can get to know them better. This time, it’s Tim Tiger, a graduate student services advisor in the Dept. of Recreation, Sport and Tourism.

Q: What drew you to the University of Illinois?

A: I was recruited here for the MFA in Jewelry & Metals, which I completed in 2001.

Q: How long have you been in AHS?

A: I started working with RST in fall of 2007.

Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?

A: Working with and assisting students and helping them feel part of the Illini family!

Q: What’s your favorite spot on campus?

A: The Quad.

Q: The best part of being an Illini is …

A: Knowing that we are at one of the best education institutions in the world!

Q: What’s your favorite movie?

A: “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”

Q: What’s your favorite TV show?

A: Past: “X-Files”

Current: “Curse of Oak Island”

Q: What’s your go-to snack?

A: Fun-sized Krackel

Q: What’s the last book you read?

A: An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States for Young People

QUOTABLE

“Tim’s an integral part of RST, and he has a genuine desire to be of service. Our faculty, students and staff count on him, and he manages to make it all happen with a smile and a great attitude. Thank you, Tim!” — Carla Santos, Department Head, Dept. of Recreation, Sport and Tourism.

College of Applied Health Sciences
110 Huff Hall
1206 South 4th Street
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 333-2131