SRLA Presents Annual Awards to Sports Law Faculty at Annual Conference

The Sports and Recreation Law Association presented its annual awards to professors in the sports law field at its annual conference in Atlanta last month.

SRLA presented its most prestigious award, the Professor Betty van der Smissen Leadership Award, to Dr. Sarah Young, of Indiana University. Dr. Andy Pittman, a long-time sports law professor at Texas A&M and Baylor, introduced Dr. Young.

Dr. Young’s research is bifurcated into legal issues in recreation and sport settings related to risk management, program delivery, and participant conduct; and using recreational sport to help solve community health issues for youth. She has also been presented by SRLA with the Herb Appenzeller SRLA Honor Award, another of the more significant awards presented by the association.

This year’s Honor Award went to Dr. Thomas Baker, of the University of Georgia. Dr. Baker is also the long-time editor of SRLA’s peer-reviewed Journal of Legal Aspects of Sports.

Among the many other awards presented were for SRLA Research Fellow to Dr. Natasha Brison, of Texas A&M University, College Station; SRLA Best Paper Award to Prof. Mark Conrad, of Fordham University; and the Lori K. Miller Young Professional Award to Prof. Alicia Jessop, of Pepperdine University. Professor Jessop served as president the association last year.

The new president of SRLA is Prof. Mark Dodds, of SUNY Cortland. Dodds holds a J.D. from Marquette University Law School, a M.B.A. from Robert Morris University, and a B.S. in Marketing Management from Syracuse University. While at MULS, he earned a Sport Law Certificate from the National Sport Law Institute. His research area is focused on legal issues in sport business, international sport, sponsorship activation, and legal issues with internships.