Gifts At Work

Partnership Promotes Healthy Youth Sports 

Thanks to a new partnership between Northeastern’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society and Sportskool—an on-demand cable network available to 35 million viewers—the university is teaming up with Doug Flutie, Bill Walton, Nomar Garciaparra and others in offering guidance and insight to parents and coaches of youth sports.

Sportskool is also promoting Northeastern’s new Master of Sports Leadership program via 30-second spots on their Web site and cable network. The program was developed between Sport in Society and the College for Professional Studies and is structured and targeted toward mid-career athletic administrators and coaches.

The graduate program is largely online with a required one-week summer institute in Boston. It is designed to accommodate mid-career athletic professionals, leveraging the experiences of Northeastern’s Division I Athletic Department.

Sport in Society Director Dan Lebowitz has contributed to a Sportskool series called “Coaches and Parents: It’s More Than a Game”, hosted by actor Sean Astin of Rudy and The Lord of the Rings fame. Lebowitz, as well as others, are advising coaches and parents on how to deal specifically with the fragile, developing esteem of young athletes.

“I think they need to talk about what the real mission of sport is, what the value of participation is, what healthy development means and how those are the skills that most kids are going to take forth to use effectively for the rest of their lives,” said Lebowitz, who is a booster of the society’s mission to promote better health and safety among youth.

If you don’t have the on-demand option to your cable television package, Sportskool is only one mouse click away. To view both Sportskool’s programming and Northeastern’s ad for its new Master of Sports Leadership program, simply visit www.sportskool.com/.

The partnership is a winning trifecta: achieving Sport in Society’s vision of promoting healthy development through sport, enhancing Sportskool’s award-winning curriculum and furthering the University’s commitment to excellence in education at all levels.