Holding the Ladder in Sport and Leadership

Sara Wegmann is the founder of Her Next Play, a nonprofit that supports leadership and career development for female athletes (https://www.hernextplay.org/). She is a strong believer in the power of sports to develop the next generation of women leaders. Through Her Next Play, she develops and delivers programs to help female athletes translate their athletic skills and experiences into powerful c...

Dr. Ken Reed is Sports Policy Director for the League of Fans and the author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan and Ego vs. Soul in Sports: Essays on Sport at Its Best and Worst . His latest book is The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place . He is a long-time sports marketing consultant, sports studies instructor, sports issues analyst, columnist and author. As...

Named a “Woman to Watch” by Washingtonian Magazine, Cydni Bickerstaff is Vice President of Operations for GREATER MSP. In this role, Cydni is responsible for guiding the financial, human resources, organizational development, information technologies, and resource development function of the organization. Cydni is a visionary, entrepreneurial leader, offering progressive experience driving an...

Dr. Ed Garrett has 30 years of experience in the sport industry. He spent time with the Colorado Rockies, 1996 Summer Olympics, and multiple years as a club, high school and college coach. He has also been an athletic director and currently serves as an Associate Professor in the Sport, Recreation and Fitness Management academic program at California Baptist University in Riverside, CA. He is also...

For the past 17 years, Ryan Briggs has served as sports information director at Grove City College where he oversees coverage of its 22 varsity sports. He is currently the longest-tenured small college sports information director in western Pennsylvania. He is a Grove City, Pennsylvania native and graduated from Grove City College in 2001 with a B.A. in English/Communications. As a student, he ser...

Melissa Stockwell is an Army veteran with an incredible story. After losing her left leg in Iraq in active combat in 2004, she quickly adapted into a life of sports and went on to swim in the 2008 Beijing Paralympics before turning to the sport of triathlon in 2009. She is a 3x Paratriathlon World Champion and bronze medalist from the 2016 Rio Paralympics. Melissa loves giving back to the multispo...

Dr. Dexter Davis has extensive experience in the sport coaching and sport management field. After coaching college soccer for a number of years, he made the transition to sport management teaching and has not looked back. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee at Martin. Davis is earned his undergraduate degree at Houghton College in Houghton, New York, his graduate degree at...

Dr. Matthew Raidbard is a graduate of Indiana University. His first college basketball coaching job was at Western New Mexico University, where he also completed a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership. After leaving Western New Mexico, he served as a men’s basketball coach at Dartmouth College, Florida Gulf Coast University, and Chicago State University. While working at Chicago State, he com...

A native of Healdton, Oklahoma, Sherri Coale had a long, successful career as the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma where she is the winningest coach in school history. Her Sooner teams appeared in 19 straight NCAA tournaments and competed in three Final Fours. Before that, she coached at Norman High School from 1990-1996. Additionally, she also participated in USA Basket...

Craig Kennedy serves as the assistant athletic director and head men's basketball coach at NCAA Division II Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. He is a 38-year coaching and teaching veteran who has coached at Troy University, Georgia Southern University, Auburn University and the University of Winnipeg. Kennedy holds a Bachelor of Education in American History from the University of Winnipeg and a...

Jenny Coady serves as the women's team performance and well-being coach for West Ham United in the Barclays FA Women’s Super League in London, England. Having played as a guard in basketball for Ireland and WIT Wildcats, Coady has worked with UK Coaching since August 2018, helping to support coaches across 13 high-performance Olympic sports on their respective journeys. Prior to her position with...

Joe Niland serves as the athletic director at NCAA Division II Spring Hill College in Mobile, AL. He was the head men's basketball coach at University of Mobile for 20 years, winning 347 games there (most all-time at UM) after serving as head coach at Spring Hill from 1993-1999, where he is the second winningest coach all-time (127-60). He won four conference titles as a head college coach and led...

Keri Alexander Luchowski serves as the Executive Director of the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC), one of the leading conferences in NCAA Division III. She has served in this role since 2011 and has filled assistant and associate executive director positions since she joined the league during the 1999-00 academic year. A 1992 graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University, she served three years as...

Michael Carpenter has served as Director of Development at Uncommon Sports Group (USG) since July 2018 and oversees all professional development, strengths training, scholarship funding, and domestic service projects. Prior to joining USG, Carpenter served four seasons as a student manager for the University of Virginia men’s basketball program from 2010-14 while receiving his B.S. in politics-for...

Lindsay Peat is an Ireland women's rugby union international. Peat represented Ireland at the 2017 Women's Rugby World Cup. Peat is an all-round sportswoman. In addition to representing Ireland at women's rugby union, she has also played for the Republic of Ireland women's national soccer team at U-18 level, captained the Ireland women's national basketball team, and played senior Ladies' Gaelic f...

Dr. Chris Hobbs is the Director of Institutional Advancement at Second Baptist School in Houston, Texas. He has been a school administrator, athletic administrator and varsity basketball coach for nearly two decades at four different schools.  Dr. Hobbs holds a master's degree in Sport Coaching from the United States Sports Academy, and an educational doctorate in Educational Leadership from Liber...

Dr. Jesse Godding currently serves at Southwestern Assemblies of God University (SAGU) in Waxahachie, Texas in the roles of Associate Professor and Director of Athletics. Academically, he teaches courses in Physical Education and Business Sports Management. As Director of Athletics, Godding oversees an athletic program consisting of 15 sports competing in the Sooner Athletic Conference (SAC) and n...

Katie Pate is the Senior Associate Athletics Director/External Operations at NCAA Division I Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. She has had an extensive career that has taken her from the sidelines to the press box and the classroom. Prior to Longwood, Pate gained nearly two decades of experience in college athletics, including time as a head coach and assistant coach, director of marketi...

Gareth Maguire is the founder of Ulster Elks Basketball Club and the co-founder and CEO of the Sport Changes Life Foundation. He has been at the forefront of the Sport Changes Life movement since the pilot of the Victory Scholar Program in Ulster University in 2007. The idea of bringing elite scholar athletes from the United States to earn a graduate degree and at the same time work in the local c...

Dave Love began his career working with youth players in his hometown of Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 2001. His first college client came in 2005, his first job with a college team in 2006, and his first NBA job with the Phoenix Suns in 2009. All told, Coach Love has worked for 3 different NBA teams (PHX, CLE, ORL) as well as multiple agencies, national federations, and youth programs around the wo...

Izzy Carnwath is the Director of Brand, Marketing and Communications for the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF), a democratic body founded to organize and drive the development of MMA on a global basis. Having previously served as an interim board member of the United Kingdom Mixed Martial Arts Federation (UKMMAF), contributing in the areas of project planning, administration and...

In the special episode on host Tim Rice's 51st birthday, we hear from CEO and co-founder of the Admirals Basketball Academy, Nick Morari. He has used the platform of sports to bring hope to people in Eurasia for over 20 years. In 2012, the Admirals Basketball Academy was born and co-founded with Darryl Lyons and J.K. Leonard of San Antonio, TX. Through all of the years, through all of the struggle...

Kelly Kratz serves as the Lead Trainer for New Trainer Development for the Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA), an organization that has grown from a small, local non-profit to a strong, national organization hosting thousands of workshops every year, and partnering with some of the largest organizations, pro sports teams, and national governing bodies. As a catalyst for a positive youth sports cultu...

Matt Smith is the head boys' basketball coach at Gordon Lee High School in Chickamauga, GA. He also owns United Basketball Clinics. He has nearly 20 years of coaching experience and began directing coaching clinics in 2014 in Chattanooga, Tennessee because he wanted to improve the game locally and take advantage of the brilliant basketball minds already living in the area. The clinics are held on...

Debbie Antonelli is an Emmy Award-winning college basketball analyst who works for ESPN, CBS, FOX, and Westwood One. She also does WNBA games for ESPN and NBATV, and was the main play-by-play voice of the Indiana Fever for 18 years. She played women's basketball at North Carolina State for the legendary Kay Yow from 1982-1986. After graduation, she worked at Ohio University where she earned a mast...