Four Ball State University graduate students received top honors in a case study competition held at the Scholarly Conference on College Sport.
Ball State competed against universities from across the country, including Baylor and Georgia State universities.
The Scholarly Conference on College Sport is a three-day event held at the William C. Friday Center at the University of North Carolina and is hosted by the College Sport Research Institute and the Exercise and Sport Science Department. This year's conference was held Wednesday through Friday.
Brad Meadows, Jennifer Lape, Kevin Royse and Erin LaValley represented Ball State for the second-straight year. They also won at last year's competition.
Meadows, a graduate sport administration student, said David Pierce, a sport administration professor, took some graduate students to one of the conferences, and they decided to build a team to compete.
The four students, who are part of the sport administration program, received their case about 10 days before they had to present it. The team had to write a 1,000-word position statement regarding the University of New Orleans' proposed transition to Division III athletics.
After Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the decrease in the number of students attending the university and the slow recovery had an affect on the university's athletics department.
Meadows said after the team received the case, it had to research and collect as much information as possible to defend its position. Besides submitting the written statement, the team had to prepare a 10-minute presentation.
"I think once we made it through the first round, we felt more confident," he said. "We worked until 3 a.m. sometimes preparing for the presentation."
Royse, a graduate sports administration student, said he decided to take part in the competition again this year because it was a good experience.
"This experience has also helped me; you learn other things than what you usually learn in a classroom," Royse said.
The team felt more confident about its performance in this year's competition after having participated last year with good results.
"We definitely felt more comfortable going on this year," Royse said. "I felt well about our chances to win."
Meadows said he wants to work with sports information in a sports and athletic department, and he would like to continue participating in conferences.
"I had a strong influence from Dr. Pierce," he said. "I had the chance to go to a conference that interested me [in the] present, not only for the competition."
Although three of the students on the team are going to finish their master's degrees, Meadows said he would like to continue going to conferences.
"It was great to represent Ball State," he said. "I look forward to going to this conference again and other conferences in the future."
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