BUIES CREEK — A team of four undergraduate students in Campbell University’s Exercise Science Department took top honors at the Conference on College Sport’s Undergraduate Case Study Competition held April 20-22 in Columbia, South Carolina. The winning team members were junior Andrew Lane and seniors Jonathan Boggs, Morgan Massengill and Ashley Hartert — all sport management majors.
“We were excited to represent Campbell and knew that though we were competing against universities with more well-known sports management programs, we were ready to compete with the best,” Boggs said. “Our success only cements in my mind and proves to others that our program is top-notch.”
Dr. Elizabeth Lange, director of Campbell’s sports management program, “has done an amazing job during her tenure at Campbell in building our sports management program,” Boggs added. “Winning this competition is only the beginning of the fruits of her labor.”
“I was very proud to see the students’ hard work ethic, creativity and motivational drive to give 110 percent and have a goal to win the competition,” Lange said. “People commented at the conference that the students’ professionalism, confidence, gracious manners and sport management knowledge demonstrated excellence for these students during their presentation and for Campbell University. . . .
“It was a joy to see them receive positive feedback from their peers and other faculty.”
Hosted by the University of South Carolina’s College Sport Research Institute, the Conference on College Sport brings together faculty, staff and students from around the country who work in the sports industry and higher academia.
The conference’s Undergraduate Case Study Competition featured student teams from eight schools who presented proposals for online communities they created that would foster athletic identification in alumni of a large public university in the Southeast.
For their case study, Lane, Boggs, Massengill and Hartert created an app called The Feed. The app has several components: The Main Feed, which compiles all university social media posts into one constantly updating feed; My Feed, which provides a personalized feed that includes sports teams users wants to follow; and The Community, which provides exclusive chats, message boards and location-based features.
As part of their presentation and proposal, the team provided an in-depth implementation plan, a financial forecast and mockups of The Feed.
“Although the students commented that what they’ve learned in the classroom at Campbell prepared them for this competition,” Lange said, “their solutions to the case scenario, marketing ideas and presentation were all a credit to their intelligence, life/work experience and enthusiasm to be a success.”
The panel that judged the competition included faculty from Clemson University, Ohio State University and the University of South Carolina, who noted the team’s presentation was forward-thinking, unique, well-thought-out and “sportacular.”
The team “also paid attention to the details,” Massengill said. “We put in a lot of long hours in order to make our paper and presentation the best it could be.”
As a reward for winning the competition, the team presented their case study to all conference attendees who attended a keynote address Tuesday morning.
“I think it was clear that we had worked hard and that we had a real passion for our idea,” Lane said. “I think our professionalism also paid off. It’s all about presenting yourself in a positive and professional manner, and we did just that.”
A second team comprised of four Campbell students who also participated in the competition finished well, too, Lange said. Those team members were Brooke Bellomy, Jonathan Brown, Ashley Clark and Terri Spaulding.
“I was very proud of both teams as they presented to a panel of judges, and I’m very proud of the hard work, dedication and time that both groups put into this project,” Lange said. “The students are thrilled and represented Campbell in a great way.”
Both teams had four weeks in March to write a paper based on the case scenario for a class Lange teaches and then three weeks to prepare their conference presentation.
“Our team logged a lot of hours in the library as one would expect when writing a 30-plus page paper,” Boggs said. “Though it was very time consuming, it was also fun because we were all very passionate about the topic.”
The two teams of Campbell students that participated in the Conference on College Sport’s Undergraduate Case Study Competition held April 20-22 with Dr. Elizabeth Lange, director of Campbell’s sports management program.