College Sports Research Institute

By Dan Girolamo

A group of four Marist sports communication students placed second overall at a prestigious undergraduate case study competition at the College Sports Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. The team consisted of Amber Case ('16), Meredith Farrell ('17), Kevin Jones ('17) and Gabrielle Revis ('17). Marist College Center for Sports Communication Director Dr. Keith Strudler served as the team's advisor. The successful finish signaled the fifth consecutive year where a Marist team finished in either first or second place at the competition.

This year's case study competition involved 12 undergraduate teams from various colleges and universities throughout the country. The teams were challenged to devise a social media strategy to help college athletic departments increase and promote alumni engagement. The Marist team wrote a case study, conducted a 10 minute presentation about their paper, and answered questions from a panel of experts in the field of academics and sports administrators.

Case described her experience at the conference as well as what she learned throughout the process.

"I definitely learned a lot from this experience. It was a huge amount of work and a major time commitment to take on during a busy semester, but I would love to do sports communication research in the future," said Case.

Besides the competition, a second group of Marist students presented an original research paper in one of the academic sessions at the event. Led by Assistant Professor of Communication Dr. Tim Mirabito, the students investigated how college athletic departments use Twitter during times of crisis. The paper was presented by Frank La Sala ('16) and Stephen Sciacca ('16). Stephen Bowering ('16), Michael Hines ('17) and Matthew Terwilliger ('17) also contributed to the paper.