Last month, two Utah Tech University student athletes attended the 2024 NCAA Career in Sports Forum in Indianapolis, Ind. The forum served to help students succeed in their career fields, especially throughout the transition from student-athlete to life after college.
Utah Tech University Students attend 2024 NCAA Career in Sports Forum
By d00437361
Women’s basketball player Emily Isaacson, a current graduate student in sport management, and men’s soccer player Traedon Chamberlain, a recent bachelor’s degree recipient in recreation & sports management, represented Utah Tech at the forum. Isaacson is set to return for one more year on the women’s basketball team at Utah Tech, while Chamberlain has begun developing his own NIL business, or Name, Image, and Likeness, called Red Rock NIL to help compensate fellow student-athletes.
The forum offered many opportunities to network with other student-athletes from around the country during breakout sessions. While most attendees were around the same age and point in their college careers, the differences between schools in separate divisions, or levels of intercollegiate athletics with differing sizes, budgets, and degrees of competitiveness, was an eye-opening experience for both students.
Both students learned to not only market themselves and build a personal brand, but also discover themselves and apply what they learned to their individual careers in sports. Isaacson, who dreams of becoming a Division 1 college basketball coach, drew inspiration from Ole Miss Head Women’s Basketball Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin and her seminar, while Chamberlain looked up to former Nike Director of Basketball Marketing Jordan Rogers and the words he shared.
“A lot of times as student athletes, our identities are built around our sport, like, ‘oh yeah, I’m a basketball player,’” Isaacson said. “But I’m so much more than a basketball player. I’m a daughter, I’m a sister, I’m a learner. We are so much more than our sport. We’re bigger than our sport.”
"We're bigger than our sport."
With many student-athletes facing a difficult but necessary transition from college athletics to real life, the NCAA Career in Sports Forum helps student-athletes navigate that transition as smoothly as possible. Utah Tech University’s “active learning. active life.” philosophy is perhaps best exemplified by student-athletes like Isaacson and Chamberlain, who put in countless hours of work not only into their sports, but also into their future careers.
Learn more about Utah Tech University Athletics at utahtechtrailblazers.com.