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Game plan for greatness
How CEHD is shaping athletic science and leadership
Sports have the power to inspire connection, drive, and excellence— values that extend far beyond the playing field. At CEHD, that same energy fuels innovative teaching, cutting-edge research, and a shared commitment to shaping future leaders in athletics, health, and education.
Photo by iStockphoto.com
Classroom to competition
Educating the minds behind athletic excellence
Behind every health professional, coach, or athlete is a foundation created in the classroom. In CEHD, educators are preparing the next generation of experts—those who will shape the future of rehabilitation, athletic performance, public health, and ethical sport leadership.
The core of what makes us human
One of Assistant Professor Rachel Hawe’s courses is Introduction to Motor Learning and Control. “What’s fun about the topic is that everyone has the experience of learning a motor skill,” she says. “Whether it’s an athletic skill, or it’s playing a musical instrument, we can draw on a lot of real-life experiences.” In a recent class, she used an example of slalom skiing to talk about the impacts verbal instruction and demonstration have on motor learning.
“I always say motor behavior is at the core of what makes us human,” she says. “How we interact with the world is through movement, whether it’s making a cup of coffee or the movements you need to do gymnastics. And with that, I think the big question is how are humans capable of doing all that we do?”
The simplest tasks, such as opening a cupboard, are in fact quite complicated when they are broken down. Now imagine everything that goes into what a high-performing athlete can achieve. It’s an interesting theoretical concept, Hawe says, but there is an important practical side. “What helps us learn the best?” she asks. “And how do we maximize someone’s performance through coaching?”
Hawe splits her class between theoretical and practical knowledge. “We spend a lot of time on more theoretical constructs of how is it even possible to control all the joints in our bodies, the theories of motor control, and the general principles of motor learning,” she says. “Right now, we’re in a chunk of the class that’s really practical—how do we schedule practice? Is it better to practice in one three-hour block? Or is it better to practice for three one-hour blocks spread out? How do we give instruction? How do we give feedback?”
Students in Hawe’s class are aiming for careers in an allied health field, mostly physical or occupational therapy or physicians’ assistants. “Principles that we’d apply to professional athletes are also similar principles that we apply to a patient going through rehabilitation following a stroke,” she says. “There might be a slightly different context or different skills that we’re working on, but the general principles really apply across the board.”
Although she’s only been at CEHD since 2020, Hawe has seen much change in the field, mostly in the way data is collected.
“In one of the units we talk about how we measure motor performance,” she says. “We used to think of measurement—especially as we get into more of the specific biomechanics—as things we can only measure in a lab. Now everyone has smartphones or high-tech watches that they carry around with them. It’s made it practical for anyone to whip out a phone and record parts of movement and get additional insight that wasn’t available 10 years ago. My students have a project where they learn a novel motor skill and have to use some sort of app to measure aspects of the movement.”
For the future, Hawe expects that like everything else, this field will be influenced by big data and AI. “We’ll be getting into the variability in human performance,” she says. “Can we find patterns in behavior? And predict who’s going to achieve different levels of success with different sports?”
The importance of staying active
Advances in Physical Activity and Health is an online course instructed by Assistant Professor Brianna Leitzelar. “We talk about physical activity broadly, including sport participation, and longterm thinking about health,” she says, which is ideal for those who are transitioning out of intense kinds of athletic structures for their exercise programs and want to move into long-term physical activity patterns.
Leitzelar has many athletes in her class, and she says this topic is one the students organically bring up. “We have some assignments where they talk about making a physical activity plan for after their college athletic career,” she says.
What makes the course unique is that students learn the foundation of both public health and kinesiology and think about kinesiology at a community level. “We talk about different aspects of health and how they are associated with physical activity,” she says. “How much physical activity do we need to reduce our risk for cardiovascular disease or cancer? We talk about specific strategies that are effective for getting people active, getting people moving.”
Many of Leitzelar’s students are focused on either physical activity-related careers or health care professions like occupational therapists, physical therapists, and doctors—those who play a critical role in helping people learn how to be active. The foundational knowledge of both public health and kinesiology they learn in her class can help them better serve their patients, Leitzelar explains.
“This is a course where we’re really focused on accurate and up-to-date information. There’s a lot of new research coming out in this area all the time,” she says. “The goal is to give students both a foundation but also talk about what’s being researched in the field. There’s a real cool interplay between what’s happening in the classroom and what’s happening in the research space. Every semester there’s something new that I try to emphasize with the students.”
As an example, Leitzelar offers the phrase “sitting is the new smoking.”
“Most people have heard that exercise is good for us and there’s specific amounts that we want to be getting in order to reduce our risk for chronic disease,” she says. “But how much time we sit and how we sit also influences our health. Even if someone is meeting those national physical activity recommendations, which is 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity, if you’re also sitting the rest of the week, that’s going to be a health risky behavior. If you are active throughout the day, breaking up sitting, that’s going to be the best thing for good health.”
Like Hawe, Leitzelar believes technology will be a huge part of the advances in the field—whether a Fitbit, Apple Watches, Oura Rings, or any number of new apps. But there will also be the issue of availability. “What comes with technological advances is discussions about who has access to these things, who doesn’t have access,” she says. “And how do we make sure that anyone who wants to access evidence-based information or a physical activity program is able to?”
Meet our CEHD Gophers
Quote from Spencer Alvarez
This degree is more focused on the relationships that go on in business and marketing. A broader view of business allowed me to find a class and topics I enjoy enough to pursue a career in. When I came into OLPD, I did not have any career goals. I was looking to learn.
Spencer Alvarez got into football in kindergarten and has been playing ever since. “My older brother did everything before me, and I followed in his footsteps,” he says.
What he enjoys most about the sport is the brotherhood that comes with it and the constant competitive setting, which motivates him to get better. “Throughout K-12, I was around the same group of guys for mostly the whole time, and we created bonds that grew on the field and in competitions,” he says. “The same thing happened with the guys I have been around being on the football team at the U. Without these connections, I would not be the man and player I am today.”
Alvarez takes pride in being Academic All-Big Ten for of his years as a Gopher. “I am also proud of how resilient I have been when it comes to injuries, not letting them affect how hard I work and always coming back to competition,” he adds.
He enrolled in OLPD because of his interest in business and marketing education. “This degree is more focused on the relationships that go on in business and marketing,” he says. “A broader view of business allowed me to find a class and topics I enjoy enough to pursue a career in. When I came into OLPD, I did not have any career goals. I was looking to learn.”
Through taking the major courses, Alvarez found an interest in sales, and he pursued a sales certificate. “With all of the things we did and the relationships that we made, I gained interest in selling insurance and am striving to become a financial advisor,” he says.
Photo courtesy of Gopher Sports
Learn more about Alvarez on Gopher Sports website.
Quote from Nyalaam Jok
The School of Social Work has given me a strong foundation for the work I will be doing. I have been offered various opportunities through my connections here and have gained so many valuable insights.
“I got into track and field when my brother started to do it in middle school,” says Nyalaam Jok. “We were super close growing up and I really looked up to him, so when he started high jumping, I knew I wanted to do it too.”
Jok enjoys the individual aspect of track and field because she gets to rely solely on herself. “This motivates me to do the little things to succeed,” she says.
She is definitely most proud of her outdoor school record in the high jump (1.86m) in her freshman year. “It was a great time in my career,” she says. “After not getting a personal best mark in almost a year, it felt like my hard work was finally paying off, and I remembered how fun track can be.”
Jok enrolled in the School of Social Work and youth studies because she had always known she wanted to be a social worker helping young people. “Being a former foster kid, it has always been something I feel I was called to do, and it will definitely be a full circle moment for me,” she says.
She plans to start working in the child welfare system and eventually become a permanent housing caseworker aiding in stable lives for young adults aging out of the foster care system. “The School of Social Work has given me a strong foundation for the work I will be doing,” she says. “I have been offered various opportunities through my connections here and have gained so many valuable insights.”
Photo courtesy of Gopher Sports
Quote from Viviana Del Angel
I believe OLPD gives me this opportunity, not only to learn and apply different business concepts but also to connect with the human side of business: communication, leadership, collaboration, diversity, and, in general, human interaction, which I really enjoy.
Viviana Del Angel started doing gymnastics when she was five years old but moved to diving two years later. “I learned how to swim at the same facility where the diving pool was,” she says. “The diving coach approached me to ask if I wanted to try diving, and that’s when I made the switch.”
Starting at age 12, she moved to Mexico City to become part of the national diving team. “From that age on, I began diving in a much more professional way, dedicating eight hours a day to training,” she says. “I enjoy challenges and the adrenaline I feel when I’m competing or standing on the 10-meter platform. It’s a feeling I can’t really describe, but I love that sense of power when I’m at the very top of the platform. I feel like I’m in control of everything.”
Del Angel is particularly proud of her U results last year. “I believe I had a really good season, especially winning the NCAA title,” she says. “At the same time, there were areas of opportunity I focused on improving this year, and I did an excellent job. This year, I may not have won another title – I placed third, but I had an amazing competition.” Del Angel was merely 0.5 points away from breaking a school record. And it was her personal best in terms of points.
Del Angel chose OLPD for her studies because she wanted a major that would give her the opportunity to be in a broad field where she could specialize in the future. “I believe OLPD gives me this opportunity, not only to learn and apply different business concepts but also to connect with the human side of business: communication, leadership, collaboration, diversity, and, in general, human interaction, which I really enjoy,” she says.
She has several career goals. For one, she would like to become a Division 1 diving head coach – she would love to guide a group of athletes to be successful and to enjoy the sport as much as she does. “I would also like to work for the University, maybe as an advisor,” she says. “I really like the university environment, both academic and athletic, so I’d love to contribute something more to the University beyond just my athletic achievements.”
Photo courtesy of Gopher Sports
Cultivating effective trainers
Assistant Professor Daniel Craighead is presently instructing Training Theory and Analytics and Exercise Physiology. Training Theory is a coaching class where students learn how to design a training program for athletes across all sorts of different sports. Exercise Physiology focuses on acute and chronic adaptations to exercise.
“People think of exercise physiology as kind of like a niche field within the broader realm of physiology,” Craighead says. “Before students can take it, they have to take human physiology, which I lovingly call sedentary physiology—physiology with lack of movement.” But the human body was designed to move and that’s what exercise physiology is all about. “It’s learning about the human body in the state that it’s supposed to be in. And if you are trying to understand the human body, you need to understand it in the context of exercise,” he says.
The training theory course is less hard science and more applied, Craighead says. “When we’re following the scientific method, we try to isolate things down to a single variable and then see how that changes in response to exercise,” he says. “But in training theory we’re trying to prepare students to work with athletes of all different calibers and different sports. So if you’re a coach or a trainer, instead of being able to focus on one variable at a time, you have to work with a lot of variables at once.”
Coaches must think about how much sleep someone is getting, what nutrition they need, and what their exercise program should be among a myriad of other factors. “We try to give students the understanding of everything that goes into athletic performance and how they can be mixed practically to get the best outcomes,” he says.
Craighead says he wants students to come away with all the tools of what goes into effective training programs and the knowledge of how to blend them together, depending on the sort of athlete or sport they’re working on. “So, if I do my job right, and can explain how everything fits together holistically, someone taking my class who’s interested in training triathletes should get just as much out of it as people who want to train basketball players,” he says. “Ideally, they’d come away with an understanding of how to analyze their sport or athlete and be able to implement the best training program. We’re trying to put professionals out there who can both be really good coaches who improve athletes’ performance, but also do it in a way that’s safe and healthy for the athletes they’re working with.”
And as new technologies come online, we are becoming more adept at improving athletic performance. “We’re learning that some things we thought were true 10 or 20 years ago maybe aren’t as true or we were getting them wrong a little bit,” Craighead says.
It used to be that after doing a lot of exercise, it was recommended to get in an ice bath to aid recovery as the idea was that ice reduces inflammation. “We thought inflammation was something bad that should be avoided,” he explains. “As we were able to understand more what was going on in individual cells, we realized that an inflammatory response to exercise was what was signaling the body to adapt and get better. So if you get in an ice bath every day, you’re basically telling your body not to adapt to exercise, and you won’t get f itter, stronger, faster. Now we tell people, ‘Get in the ice bath occasionally, but don’t do it every single day.’”
Ethics and public engagement
Professor Lisa A. Kihl teaches Ethics and Sports Policy, essential for those seeking a master’s degree in sport management. In the course, students learn that their understandings of ethical principles and concepts inform policy-making. Success in policy making is based on having an accurate perception of policy issues, possessing the ability to frame the policy issue from an ethical principle (e.g., justice, responsibility, duty of care), and applying that principle in making policy decisions and justifications.
“For example, how an individual understands the principle of a duty of care will inform how we perhaps write athlete mental health policies or how we write safeguarding policies,” Kihl says. “It’s important that our future leaders in sport have an understanding of how to identify policy problems, conceptualize them through an ethical lens, and make a decision and justification based on an ethical principle.”
A second course she leads, Issues in the Sport Industry, focuses on social innovation and public engagement. “We partner with a sport organization, and we develop socially innovative strategies to address social problems in communities,” Kihl says. “This is an important course because, arguably, sport organizations have a social role to benefit communities and not create negative impacts.”
One year, the class worked with the Minnesota Vikings to develop a sustainability strategy for the organization. The winning student group developed a socially innovative “Vikings Garden sustainability competition for high schools.” The strategy involved the Vikings sponsoring a competition where the winning school would receive a “Vikings Garden” where students could learn about sustainability practices.
The goal of Kihl’s courses is to have students think differently about how issues are approached in the sport community. “We’re not doing a good job in certain things in the sport industry,” she says. “In fact, we’re terrible. So, we’re asking students what we can do differently. How can we look at problems differently so that we are protecting our athletes from sexual abuse or from being turned into commodities, for example? How do we navigate the power politics to create an environment where we can actually make change?” Sadly, the topics covered in Kihl’s classes haven’t changed much over the years. Some, such as diversity and transgender athletes, are political hot buttons at the moment. “These problems are not easy, and it takes a lot of moral courage and time to engage in social change,” she says. “And sport is an institution that doesn’t generally like change.”
Kihl is the first to admit that her students are currently in a learning environment where it’s quite challenging. “But the students that I have seen are quite up to the task and they have good insights about what has to happen to make change,” she says. “I’m hoping as more and more of our students get into the industry, we will see some sort of change because of that leadership.”
Kihl says it’s a pleasure to work with young people who are inquisitive, insightful, motivated, want to grapple with these challenges, and really make change. “From an educator’s perspective, it’s fun to go to class,” she says.
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