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On Friday, October 28, 2016, CPASS inducted three graduates into its 2016 Hall of Fame, presented the Distinguished Service Award and named its 2016 Outstanding Alumna.

Thomas Habegger earned his BS degree in sport management from CPASS in 1986 and went on to earn both master’s and doctoral degrees from other institutions. He has been an associate of Columbus State in Ohio for more than 30 years and currently serves as the Dean of the Health and Human Services Division. As the director of intercollegiate athletics at Columbus State, Habegger directed the establishment of the athletic program beginning in 1987, and by the time he left the Intercollegiate Athletics Department, he had forged a nine-sport, nationally recognized program.

CPASS graduate and 2017 Outstanding Alumna Linda Carson was one of four trailblazers in the fields of engineering, agriculture, business and education honored as this year’s inductees into the Academy of Distinguished Alumni, one of the highest honors awarded to graduates of WVU.

Carson joined Dr. George Fahey, Katherine Johnson and William Bayless as an elite group of WVU graduates inducted on May 19 during a recognition ceremony held at the Erickson Alumni Center.

Three CPASS professors — Ed Etzel, professor, Sport and Exercise Psychology, and director of the Center for Sports Ethics; Kristen Dieffenbach, PhD, associate professor, Athletic Coaching Education, and director of the Center for Applied Coaching and Sport Science; and Gonzalo Bravo, associate professor, Sport Management — discuss some of the most fundamental questions raised in sports ethics today. How and why must sport be protected, and what are we actually protecting it from? 

Dieffenbach: Sport has a tremendous, long-recognized power to unify people and bring out the best. Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, based the modern games on the positive potential of sport. But the potential positives don’t happen automatically and aren’t as much a byproduct of sport itself as they can only occur when we work together. You need collaboration for competition — a shared set of rules, values and standards. Without opponents and without teammates, sport cannot occur. We know that quality physical activity, which can occur through sport, improves physical as well as mental well-being. It can also provide a way to share culture, communicate without a common language and to promote diversity.

An ongoing interest in international, interdisciplinary collaboration across sport management and athletic coaching education took Associate Professor of Sport Management Gonzalo Bravo to Brazil from August 5 to December 3, 2016, for research and teaching.

Bravo visited the Research Center for Sport, Leisure and Society (CEPELS) at Universidad Federal do Paraná (UFPR) in Curitiba, along with three other universities in Brazil to teach guest lectures, work with graduate students and collaborate with faculty on projects of mutual interest.

Emi Tsuda will be joining CPASS as a visiting assistant professor for 2017–2018. She completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and is a licensed physical education teacher in Japan. In 2012, she arrived in the U.S. and completed her master’s and doctoral degrees in physical education teacher education at The Ohio State University. Her research focuses on examining the role of motor competence to engage in physical activity and exploring ways to assist teachers in providing effective physical education to enhance student motor skill learning. She is interested in how the tasks teachers develop and select impact student learning. Tsuda’s research specifically focuses on early childhood to middle childhood physical education.

James Wyant will be joining CPASS as an assistant professor of Physical Education Teacher Education in fall 2017. He is a West Virginia native who has experience working in K-12 schools, implementing after-school physical activity programming for underserved youth and mentoring students of all levels. He provides expertise in assessment and evaluation, as well as teacher training. In addition to teaching courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels, he coordinates student teaching experiences for the Physical Education Teacher Education program. He is interested in researching the physical education labor market and instructional technology in physical education. Wyant is looking forward to working with the faculty and students at West Virginia University.

This year FiT Publishing is celebrating more than 30 years in operation and 13 years in the Mountaineer family. In 1984 Fitness Information Technology, Inc., was founded by William L. Alsop and Andrew C. Ostrow (professors emeriti of WVU) in Morgantown, with the goal of being recognized as a premier publisher in the sport sciences field. In 2004 — just in time for the College’s 72nd year — FiT was gifted to CPASS in honor of Andrew Ostrow’s father Philip Ostrow and, under the umbrella of WVU, FiT has flourished.

Today, FiT honors its original mission to be a leading publisher in sport sciences as the principal publishing arm of the International Center for Performance Excellence in the College of Physical Activity and Sport Sciences. FiT now publishes three journals, one of which is recognized internationally as a premier sport marketing journal with a subscriber base in more than 20 countries, and this year, FiT will publish more than 10 textbooks including upcoming titles “Experiential Learning in Sport Management: Internships and Beyond,” “Enhancing Performance and Quality of Life,” and “Being Mindful in Sport and Exercise Psychology: Pathways for Practitioners and Students,” co-edited by WVU CPASS professor Sam Zizzi.

Athletic Training students and faculty visited Ireland during spring break to discover the countryside and experience academic studies and clinical settings. The 11 students, led by Allison Hetrick, Athletic Training clinical coordinator and Dana Voelker, Sport and Exercise Psychology assistant professor, enjoyed breath-taking views at the Cliffs of Moher, traveled to Northern Ireland, explored the Giant’s Causeway and enjoyed local cuisine.

Students visited Trinity College to catch a glimpse of the Book of Kells. The travelers attended classes at Dublin City College, for both athletic training and non-athletic training studies. The athletic training group learned how the clinical setting in Ireland works, comparing differences during the clinic.

WVU Sport and Exercise Psychology students embarked on an international adventure during their spring break. The bi-annual spring break study abroad trip to Halmstad and Halmstad University in Sweden, March 2-12, offered 11 students the opportunity to attend academic sessions and interact with Swedish students studying the same subject.

The itinerary for the trip included a visit to Kronborg Castle, the setting of “Hamlet,” and a ferry ride to reach Styro, a small island off the coast of Gothenburg. The group also attended major-related events including the Swedish National Table Tennis Championship and visited the Hamstad Golf Arena.

In May 2016, a group of eight West Virginia University students, seven from CPASS and one from the College of Business and Economics, joined a group of six students from the School of Hospitality in the Sport and Recreation Management program at James Madison University. The group embarked on a 10-day trip to the Dominican Republic to explore the business and culture of baseball in the capital city of Santo Domingo.

The trip was inspired, in part, through the WVU Sport Management curriculum, which aims to provide insights of the globalization of the sport industry. Gonzalo Bravo, lead WVU faculty for the study abroad trip, has taught the course, “Sport in the Global Market,” for almost a decade.

In our busy modern world, fathers often have trouble finding enough time to spend with their children. CPASS and the WVU Extension Service are looking to help change that with an ongoing program called iFather.

Its creators designed the program to not only increase the time fathers spend with their children but to also increase quality time, specifically by encouraging playtime between fathers and children. Launched at local Monongalia County elementary schools, this joint effort between CPASS and Extension kicked off their spring sessions at Skyview Elementary in March and have since held events at neighboring Ridgedale, Cheat Lake, Mountainview and Brookhaven schools.