The link between educational leadership and the world of sports isn’t always obvious.
But chat for a bit with UW–Madison’s Peter Miller, and it quickly becomes clear why the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) is launching a new Master of Science in Sports Leadership (MSL) program.
“At UW–Madison, we’re uniquely positioned to draw from the university’s world-class academic and athletic resources to prepare dynamic sports leaders,” says Miller, the faculty director of the new program who is both a professor with ELPA, and chair of UW’s Athletic Board.
Like most faculty members, Miller spent thousands of hours during his young adult life in a classroom, first earning an undergraduate degree in sociology at the University of Notre Dame. He followed that work by receiving a master’s in teaching at the University of Portland, and a PhD in educational leadership and policy from the University of Utah in 2005.
It was time Miller spent outside the traditional classroom, however, that he highlights as being the most influential in his life.
“Being a student-athlete at Notre Dame was undoubtedly my signature learning experience of my entire education career,” says Miller, who played men’s basketball for the Fighting Irish for four seasons, co-captaining the 1996-97 team. “My coach, John MacLeod, was this font of wisdom who approached coaching as a way to prepare us for life.”
To further underscore the value of quality leaders in sports, Miller notes how high school and college students typically move around to numerous classes each day, often changing teachers and professors at the end of a semester.
“But with a coach, you often build a longitudinal relationship with that person, often over four years,” he says. “That can have a significant influence on a student — good or bad. The MSL is designed to produce effective sports leaders who can help to ensure that more people will have great and impactful experiences.”
The new program is flexible and fully online to accommodate students with busy lives.
Among the many benefits of the program is that it’s housed on a campus that’s home to a perennially successful UW Athletic Department, with a range of highly regarded Badgers sports teams, coaches, and administrators. Similarly, ELPA is housed within the UW–Madison School of Education, which has been consistently ranked among the very best in the nation for the past two decades.
The new program will give students important insight into a variety of sports leadership areas, such as: athletic administration; coaching; justice in sport; legal and financial issues; and sports psychology, to name a few. Graduates of the program will be prepared for leadership positions within sports programs across levels — spanning K-12 and youth programs, to colleges and universities, and professional organizations.