September/October 2014 – BizVoice/Indiana Chamber
69
Business of Sports
school is the exclusive partner of the WTA
for online bachelor’s degrees for professional
women tennis players.
IU East Director of Admissions Molly
Vanderpool notes that the partnership came
about “organically” and that Williams is just
one of many students pursuing an online
bachelor’s degree. The school began offering
online degree completion programs in 2004
to aid the rural demographics of its region.
“Our region is very rural; it can span
over an hour radius of our campus, so the
online degree completion is for the adults in
our region. What grew from that is that,
organically, students – including Venus
Williams – found our program,” Vanderpool
asserts. “While we don’t pursue students
outside of our region, they are pursuing us.”
There are about 20 WTA athletes currently
enrolled in the online degree program, which
offers 10 different bachelor’s degrees.
“It’s just been amazing how the program
has developed. For me, it just started out that
I wanted a business degree. It’s something
I’ve always wanted to have, so I felt like,
‘Hey, it’s time,’ ” Williams recalls. “There
has to be life after the sport. As an athlete,
you end so early, you’re quite a young
person and you have to figure out who you
are and what you do. I’m excited that these
other players are figuring that out.”
Motivating fellow students
These professional athletes – intentionally
or unintentionally – also serve as motivation
and inspiration for fellow IU East students,
Vanderpool contends. When Williams first
enrolled in 2011, a fellow student tweeted her
about representing the school at the U.S. Open
and she responded back “Go Red Wolves,” in
reference to her new school’s team mascot.
“We are providing the service to the
players (to earn the degree). In return, and
also through their enrollment and successes,
they have become role models and inspirations
– encouragement to students taking online or
on-campus classes,” Vanderpool explains.
“Definitely, they have now become Red Wolves.
“That is really powerful when talking to
students in Indiana. They’re having classes online
with students abroad and professional athletes;
it’s inspiring to them and hopefully it’s giving
them the encouragement for persistence.
“It all goes back to the role of a regional
campus like IU East. We’re helping Hoosiers
increase the number of residents with bachelor’s
degrees and improving our state. Those are
certainly important initiatives to us.”
The school assists WTA athletes with
admissions, purchasing and shipping books to
wherever they are traveling for tournaments and
the overall education process. Classes, however,
are held on traditional semester schedules and
everyone has the same deadlines and coursework –
no matter their location or occupation.
“Online classes are not necessarily easier.
There is the convenience of time, but these
folks are on time zones that are not real
convenient sometimes,” Vanderpool says.
“There are not any differences than the way
any other online student (takes courses).”
Williams can attest to that, as well as how
helpful the school has been while she’s
traveling to tournaments and working on her
degree. She said the school scanned information
from one of her textbooks when it got left
behind while she was traveling in Europe.
The time commitment – while worth it,
according to Williams – is the most difficult
part of getting an online degree.
“Some classes come easier, some are just
exams, but you have to plan. And sooner than
later. That is the most difficult part. You have
to put time aside and prioritize. Is it more
important to be at the club or get the exam
done? There’s no way on this earth I want to
take accounting twice. That is one of the
most intense classes I’ve ever done and I
don’t want to do that again,” she laughs.
Language, cultural training
IU East is a member of PAADS
(Professional Association of Athlete
Development Specialists), which assists
people and organizations who work with
professional athletes to share best practices
and resources for athlete development.
The Indianapolis-based Language Training
Center (LTC) is another Indiana member of
the organization. The company has had an
agreement with the Ladies Professional Golf
Association (LPGA) since 2009 to offer
language and cultural training.
Golfers from around the world are part
of the LPGA and the athletes travel to
numerous countries during their annual
schedules, where they are thrown into a
variety of languages and cultures they might
neither speak nor understand.
That can make conversing with the
media and important sponsors difficult and
daunting – presenting huge barriers in a game
where concentration and focus are of the
utmost importance, notes Language Training
Center President and Founder Martin George.
“(The agreement) really started as (the
LPGA) was going through a little bit of a
transition period. They had 95 of their 144
athletes who were foreign born and they
were seeing the foreign-born athletes weren’t
really resonating with some of their sponsors
and having more difficulty with their
interviewing skills,” George recalls.
“This is so they actually know how to
use the language in situations where maybe
they’re interviewing or walking down the
fairway and thinking, ‘I might win this
tournament and then what am I going to do
when I have to get on the interview stand and
I’ve got to talk to the TV and radio and
newspaper?’ Some of them said it really
caused them to lose tournaments, because
they were so afraid of that interview.”
Golfers participating in Pro-Am
tournaments need to build a rapport with
business people and potential sponsors; and
being able to communicate well is paramount
to their success.
The LTC’s training regimen includes
simultaneous interpreting with headsets, and 40
Continued on page 72
Josh Ehrgott, Language
Training Center interpreting
director, uses headsets with
LPGA golfers to work on
translation and learning
various languages.
(opposite page) Tennis champion Venus Williams enrolled at Indiana University East in 2011 to attain her bachelor's degree in business. The school is the
exclusive partner for online bachelor's degrees for Women's Tennis Association athletes.
