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McEvoy, Frazier set to co-teach KNPE course in college athletics

September 6, 2017
The other is the tremendously successful director of Intercollegiate Athletics at a Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision university that has scored several conference championships in recent years.Both are co-teaching a course this fall in the College of Education, providing students with a real-world, from-the-trenches, theory-meets-practice view of the business side of college athletics – and what these two have lived could fill more than any textbook.

Sean T. Frazier

Sean T. Frazier, associate vice president and director of NIU Intercollegiate Athletics, and Chad McEvoy, chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Physical Education, will team up to teach LESM 341: Administration of Intercollegiate Athletics.

“How many students can say that they have had a leading industry practitioner and a leading scholar involved in teaching their class?” says McEvoy, who previously worked in the “front offices” for the Iowa State Cyclones and the Western Michigan Broncos.

“I’m excited about that kind of dynamic classroom environment. I’ve wanted to carve out some time from my schedule to contribute to our teaching mission, and I have some background in college athletics,” he adds. “I reached out to Sean because I thought it would be an interesting way to deliver this class. We can rely on his wealth of experience and expertise.”

Frazier was game.

“This is a course,” Frazier says, “that fits right up the alley for potential sports administrators, and especially those individuals who want to know more about the collegiate side of things, from the standpoint of a practitioner who runs a FBS-Division I program. We have one of those programs here – and it makes sense that myself, our coaches and our student-athletes help out.”

Introduced last semester, the LESM 341 course introduces students to contemporary and important issues in intercollegiate athletics.

Among them: philosophies of athletics, the place of athletics in the educational curriculum, the relationship between men’s and women’s programs, budgeting, facilities, equipment, personnel, event operations management, fundraising, public relations, governance, compliance as well as other legal matters.

Guest speakers, including many of Frazier’s senior staff, department heads and coaches, and tours of athletics facilities pump up the syllabus.

Chad McEvoy

“Students are really going to get the best of understanding the theory and research as well as the cutting-edge, industry best practices,” McEvoy says. “We have 20 students, a fairly small group that will promote lots of discussion and good engagement.”

Frazier expects those classroom conversations will include plenty of questions, from how he negotiates coaching contacts and multimedia rights to how he got his start and what he would count as his greatest moment.

NIU’s A.D. has taught before – courses in higher education leadership, policy and analysis, sometimes with a sport management component – during his stops at the University of Maine, the University of Wisconsin and Merrimack College.

He now finds himself eager to return to that vocation, even if for just one hour a week.

“When Chad brought this to me, it was something of a no-brainer for me. To sit in a classroom and facilitate a conversation about topics students are reading about is a passion of mine,” Frazier says.

Calling himself “not an old, but a seasoned administrator,” he believes the KNPE class will offer an exclusive peek inside college athletics operations: “This is what it took to get to Game Day, this is how it continues to evolve during Game Day, and this is what happens after Game Day.”

Some students might realize their career paths lies elsewhere, he adds, but others are equally as likely to grow even hungrier to follow his footsteps. Frazier knows he would have had he been provided a similar opportunity during his undergraduate days at the University of Alabama.

“Had I someone who was a sitting A.D. at any level come in and say, ‘You could do this. This could be an opportunity for you,’ I probably would’ve gotten into this earlier rather than stumbling backward into it,” says Frazier, who worked in health care and earned a master’s degree in social work to help people with substance abuse issues or developmental disabilities.

McEvoy and Frazier are eager themselves to become students – of each other.

“I’m looking forward to understanding more about how Sean leads NIU Athletics,” McEvoy says, “and how some of the things we would pull out of a textbook, out of research or out of industry publications actually impacts NIU and other athletics departments on a daily basis.”

“Chad is a fascinating guy. I’ve learned a lot from him during our interactions,” Frazier adds. “I want to see how he articulates, communicates and runs a classroom of young people. In the future, that’s going to be something I want to pursue more. Sitting in the chair as A.D. is a passion but probably not a lifelong thing. I want to impart knowledge to the next generation.”

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