Sports Law Professor Joseph Cooper Receives Prestigious Honor at UMass Boston

Joseph N. Cooper has been named the inaugural Dr. J. Keith Motley Endowed Chair of Sport Leadership and Administration at the University of Massachusetts (UMass) Boston.

Prior to UMass Boston, Cooper served as an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn) in the Sport Management program in Department of Educational Leadership and Neag School of Education, where he taught sports law, as well as other subjects.

Cooper earned his undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Recreation Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH), master’s degree in Sport Administration in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science from UNC-CH, and doctorate in Kinesiology with a concentration in Sport Management and Policy from the University of Georgia (Athens, GA).

His research agenda focuses on the intersection between sport, education, race, and culture with an emphasis on sport involvement as a catalyst for holistic development. He is also the faculty founder of Collective Uplift (CU), an organization designed to educate, empower, inspire, and support individuals to maximize their holistic potential both within and beyond athletic contexts (http://www.collectiveuplift.com). He has presented research at international, national, and regional conferences and published numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, edited books, and op-ed contributions. As a result of his research, he has been cited in various media outlets including the New York Times, Boston Globe, ESPN, Le Monde, ABC News, Yahoo, and Diverse Issues in Higher Education. He is the author of From Exploitation Back to Empowerment: Black Male Holistic (Under)Development Through Sport and (Mis)Education (Peter Lang).