She built on the organization’s winning 2021 season and playoff appearance, key player re-signings, and increased global exposure for the organization, leading the charge to streamline key financial operations using integrated software – a critical element to the team’s success. Her approach offers a recipe for success.
Rick is joined by Rachel Pearcy, this week on ‘Tech of Sports.” Rachel is the CFO of the Dallas Wings of the WNBA.
An advocate for community, having made a move to the sports industry two years ago, Rachel is passionate about building a solid foundation to enable her to focus on relationships to drive the organization forward and help ensure success both on and off the court.
The WNBA is hot! She talks about that and a lot more.
Pleasure to be joined by Olivia Baker, this week on “Tech of Sports.” Olivia is having a career year in 2022.
The New Jersey native and Stanford grad is current the 25th ranked 800m runner in the world. She just ran at 1:58:46 at the Toyota USATF Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, OR. Now living in Atlanta and representing the Atlanta Track Club, Olivia has her sights set on improving her world ranking and feels her best times are still to come. She’s had a busy 2022 and there is still half the year to go.
A self-described “nerd” (I wouldn’t call her that), Olivia loves reading and co-hosts a book club on Instagram @runjumpread), along with interests that include watching sports, hiking, and board games.
We were luck enough to catch up with the speedy and gritty Olivia!
She is a seven-time national championship qualifier with a career-best 3rd place finish in the 600m at the 2019 USATF Indoor Championships. Baker was a semi-finalist in the 800m at the 2016 Olympic Trials and qualified for the 2021 Trials. At Stanford, Baker, who has a degree in human biology, was an 11-time All-American. Her personal best of 2:00.08 in the 800m (2018) is the Cardinal’s school record.
Tennis & Racket Industry Pros Launch RKT3 Group To Offer Expert Consulting Strategy, Programming and Leadership Development
Rick talks to Erik Kortland this week on “Tech of Sports.”
Three dynamic leaders in the racket sports space are venturing out and offering their services to organizations and facilities looking to expand and take advantage of the growing landscape and popularity of tennis, paddle, pickleball and other racket sports within the industry.
RKT3 Group, Inc., offers executive coaching, vision strategies with mission statements, communications, marketing, programming, leadership and personal development to clubs and racket sports facilities in the United States and abroad.
RKT3 Group was founded in 2021 by dynamic tennis leaders Ryan Redondo, Erik Kortland and Khuong Tien.
“Our vision is to promote an innovative and universal approach to the tennis and racket sport industry,” said Kortland, a former USTA National coach now the National Sports Marketing Manager for Tecnifibre/Lacoste Sports Group also working in player development. “The growth of racket sports like tennis, padel, and pickleball has skyrocketed over the past three of four years, especially in the United States. And we want to be the leaders in helping the industry’s leading facilities and organizations get the most out of their developmental strategy.”
RKT3’s services include organizational strategy and structuring, club management, on and off court program development, one-on-one coaching and mentoring, tournament planning, fundraising and development strategy and planning, and more.
“We support and create a space for our clients to provide lucrative business models, strengthened community development, and the tools to be on the cutting edge within the industry,” said Redondo, the CEO of Youth Tennis San Diego and General Manager of Barnes Tennis Center, home of a newly announced WTA 500 tournament set for the fall.
Tien is a junior tennis parent who has worked as a corporate lawyer for the past 20 years. Prior to RKT3 Group, he served as general counsel for a national chain restaurant based in Southern California.
For more information on the RKT3 Group, go to the website at: www.rkt3.com.
Rick is joined by former CNN Headline News’ Jane Velez-Mitchell this week to talk about her new venture.
Jane Velez-Mitchell, award-winning TV journalist, New York Times bestselling author and former CNN Headline News anchor, has launched a new streaming network called UnchainedTV. This network is FREE and does not require any emails, subscriptions, or disclosure of personal information to watch. How does she do this, you may ask? It is all done through her non-profit organization, here to expand your mind and transform your lifestyle. This channel offers documentaries, cooking shows, travelogues, talk shows and music videos. It is a portal to a joyous, healthier, more environmentally sustainable, and more compassionate lifestyle. UnchainedTV has just launched the first ever reality show starring a family of pigs called Pig Little Lies.
Rick is joined this week by former D-I student athlete and now author, M.K. Lever.
Imagine a world where coercion, control, surveillance, and manipulation reign. Where imbalance of power makes exploitation easy and where those at the bottom of the heap sacrifice everything to make a profit for those at the top. M.K. Lever’s knockout debut work of fiction, Surviving the Second Tier, weaves these issues and themes throughout a new fictional dystopia to display the real world truths that face athletes in the college athletic system.
This is a great candid interview and I believe this novel should be required reading for athletes.
“I wrote this book to educate readers about the reality of the college sports industry, as someone who has been there before,” shares Lever. “Sometimes, facts and statistics don’t stick with people and since we are intrinsically wired to follow narratives, I wanted to tell people a story in hopes that the message would resonate in a unique and powerful way. I wanted to give college sports the 1984 treatment and create a narrative that would be impactful and a little unsettling.”
Lever, a former Division 1 athlete and PhD candidate at UT Austin, combines her personal experiences as a college athlete and the weight of her academic research in areas concerning NCAA rhetoric, discourse, and policy to create her stunning and emotionally driven literary debut. Surviving the Second Tier depicts a new day in college athletics in which the old multi-sport model has collapsed and the bare bones, but extremely profitable Amateur Fighting Association has risen in its place. Where students once competed in a multitude of sports on a variety of playing fields, now college athletes have only the AFA ring in which to prove themselves in full-contact, no holds barred fights to the finish.
Coach Brian Bohannon, of Kennesaw State joins Rick this week.
Hired on March 24, 2013 and tasked with building a football program from scratch, Bohannon embraced the challenge and quickly turned Kennesaw State into the best five-year start-up program in college football history in 2019 with a 48-15 overall record, two Big South Conference championships, three straight appearances in the FCS Playoffs and four playoff victories.
Bohannon is a four-time finalist for the Eddie Robinson award as the nation’s top FCS head coach, including a runner-up finish in 2018 and a third-place finish in 2017. He was named the AFCA National Coach of the Year in 2017 and is a three-time Big South Conference Coach of the Year.
He is tied for first in Big South Conference history with 63 victories and he became the fastest coach to win 45 games when he reached the benchmark with a 38-35 win over Campbell on Nov. 9, 2019. In the first five years of the program, 100 national polls have been released with the Owls appearing in over 67-percent of the rankings. Of those 100 polls, Kennesaw State has been inside the top-10 41-percent of the time.
The 2019 season was the beginning of a new era in Kennesaw State football, as the original signing class moved on and gave way to a new crop of talented players hungry to continue the championship tradition. Not only did the team deliver, but they recorded the program’s third-straight 11-win season and made a return trip to the FCS Playoffs where they knocked off No. 11 Wofford on the road in the opening round.
After putting the world on notice in 2017 with a 12-2 season, the Owls somehow outdid themselves during the 2018 campaign. Ranked No. 2 in the nation for much of the year, KSU earned the No. 4 overall seed in the playoffs and took an 11-game winning streak to a second consecutive quarterfinal appearance where the Owls held the third-longest home streak in the nation that dated back over two calendar years.
Bohannon, 50, put Kennesaw State on the map in 2017 when he led the Owls to a 12-2 season and an outright Big South Championship after finishing conference play undefeated at 5-0. Holding the country’s top rushing offense, the Owls would make their first postseason berth in stellar fashion, getting revenge from their season-opening loss to Samford by winning 28-17 to advance.
The Owls then upset No. 3 Jacksonville State in the second round by scoring 14 unanswered second-half points to win 17-7. KSU’s historic run would falter in the quarterfinals in a tough 34-27 loss to No. 5 Sam Houston State, but not before solidifying a young Kennesaw State team as one of the nation’s top programs.
Under Bohannon’s tutelage emerged one of the country’s premiere quarterbacks in Chandler Burks who was named the 2018 College Football Performance Awards FCS National Performer of the Year. He also finished runner-up for the Walter Payton Award, given to the nation’s top FCS offensive player. He ended his career with a 31-6 record as the starting quarterback, a league record 56 rushing touchdowns and 3,431 yards on the ground.
The national awards shifted to the defensive side of the ball in 2017, as Bryson Armstrong brought home the prestigious Jerry Rice Award as the FCS National Freshman of the Year. On his way to first-team All-America honors, Armstrong finished the 2017 campaign with 114 total tackles (85 solo), 12.5 tackles for loss, 11.0 sacks, three interceptions, seven pass breakups, one quarterback hurry, four recovered fumbles, three forced fumbles and one blocked kick.
It took Bohannon just two seasons to vie for a Big South Conference title and reach the Top 25 as the Owls finished their debut year 6-5 before posting an 8-3 mark in 2016.
His first two teams at Kennesaw State won 14 times in 22 games while posting eye-popping offensive numbers. The Owls rushed for 293 yards per game in 2015, which led the Big South and ranked sixth nationally. His offense then surpassed that number in 2016, rolling up 320.6 yards per game on the ground to finish third in the FCS. The last three seasons saw KSU record the three best rushing seasons in Big South history behind VMI’s record-breaking 357.5 yards in 2008.
In 2015, the Owls lit up the scoreboard with 41 touchdowns and 429.8 yards of total offense per game. The following year, the Black & Gold was the only team in the FCS to finish ranked in the top 10 in total offense (479.5 ypg), rushing (320.6 ypg), scoring (38.9 ppg), pass efficiency (156.72), third-down (49 percent) and fourth-down conversions (70 percent).
Bohannon’s Owls began their debut season 4-1 in non-conference action and made history again with a 12-7 win over Gardner-Webb on October 17 as Kennesaw State became the first Big South member to win its first conference game in its initial year as a member.
The early-season success gave Bohannon’s team national recognition in the polls for the first time as KSU spent three consecutive weeks among teams receiving votes in the FCS Stats Top 25 beginning October 19.
Another Big South win over Monmouth allowed the Owls to clinch a winning record. The team finished 6-5 to tie Georgia State for the third-best record by an FCS program in its inaugural season.
