A team of four graduate students from the Ball State Sport Administration Program took home top honors in the inaugural Case Study Competition held during the "Scholarly Conference on College Sport".  The event was hosted from April 15-18, 2009 at the William and Ida Friday Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and sponsored by the College Sport Research Institute (CSRI).  Team members Erin Gilreath, Erin LaValley, Kevin Royse and Ryan Yurko were honored for this accomplishment at the 2009 Scholarly Conference on College Sport Banquet that also featured award winning journalist and author William Rhoden of the New York Times. 

The Ball State team competed in a two-round case competition, and advanced to the finals by posting the top score in the opening round.  The opening round focused upon a comprehensive analysis of a potential jump from NCAA Division II to Division I by the University of North Carolina Pembroke.  In the second-round finals of the competition the Ball State team faced the University of Northern Colorado in a three part analysis of conference affiliation, beer sponsorship, and coaching change as issues faced within a transition to Division I athletics.  The Ball State team topped the Northern Colorado team despite the fact that the UNC team was composed of four doctoral students compared to the four BSU masters students.

According to the team's faculty sponsors, Dr. Larry Judge, Dr. Jeffrey Petersen, and Dr. David Pierce, this case study competition was an outstanding learning experience where the academic training of our students was able to be fully integrated with problem solving and presentation skills in an intense environment.  Team member Kevin Royse commented that the competition was both the most grueling and rewarding academic experience of his Ball State program.  Erin Gilreath added that despite the lack of sleep and stress associated with the competition it was a memorable and valuable experience in preparation for her future career in the sport industry. The winning team was awarded a plaque, coverage on the CSRI website, and complimentary entry to next year's conference to defend their case study competition title in 2010. 

In addition to the team's  work in preparing and presenting in the case competition, two team members, Erin Gilreath and Ryan Yurko, were involved in a research presentation entitled "NCAA Division I, II, and III Track and Field Hammer Throw Facilities: Compliant with International Safety Standards?" along with Dr. Judge and Dr. Petersen.  The Scholarly Conference on College Sport is an annual event for faculty, athletic administrators, students, sport practitioners, and the public interested in research, theory, and critical thinking about college sport and surrounding issues.  This conference was hosted by the College Sport Research Institute (CSRI) housed at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  The mission of the CSRI is to encourage and support interdisciplinary and interuniversity collaborative college-sport research, serve as a research consortium for college-sport researchers from across the United States, and disseminate college-sport research results to academics, college-sport practitioners, and the general public.