Category: Sports Research

By Katie Gerbasich

Walking through downtown Clemson, it’s hard to miss the sea of orange and purple. Hundreds of t-shirt designs line storefronts using different colors, fabrics, and printing techniques. Still, fans expect one thing to remain consistent: they should be able to recognize their team instantly by color alone.

Drs. Erica Walker and Amanda Bridges in Clemson’s Department of Graphic Communications have spent the past several years studying exactly that.

“Color is a vital part of a brand’s identity, and printing consistent, durable, and accurate brand colors across different materials can be challenging for manufacturers,” Walker said.

After receiving international recognition for their Clemson-branded textile research, Walker and Bridges expanded their work to include all ACC team colors. The study evaluates 64 brand colors across multiple textile types and printing methods, including dye sublimation and direct-to-film (DTF) printing, to better understand how color accuracy, durability, and material interact in athletic apparel.

“Brand colors matter, and fans recognize when their team’s colors are not representative,” Walker said.

To test this, the research compared two printing processes, dye sublimation and direct-to-film printing, across cotton, polyester, and blended fabrics. By analyzing how each method performs on different materials, the study highlights the challenges of maintaining color accuracy at scale.

Walker, a faculty fellow of Clemson’s Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute, has received support from the Institute throughout this work, including funding for equipment and conference participation.

The findings show that the printing method, textile type, and color family play significant roles in color accuracy. Direct-to-film printing consistently produced more accurate color results overall, while dye sublimation performed best on 100% polyester fabrics. Across both processes, some color families proved easier to reproduce than others. Neutral tones such as black and gray, along with yellow-gold hues, showed higher accuracy across processes and textile types, whereas more saturated colors posed greater challenges.

As athletic departments continue to expand the reach and value of their brands, maintaining color consistency becomes more than simply a design challenge. It becomes part of how student-athletes and fans identify with, represent, and connect to their teams.

“Ensuring that brand colors are seen accurately across mediums, processes, and materials,” Walker said, remains a central goal of the research.

By examining how printing methods and fabrics influence color accuracy, the study offers manufacturers valuable insights for delivering consistent, high-quality products. So the next time you buy a Clemson t-shirt, take a second look to see if it is actually Clemson Orange and Regalia purple.

By Katie Gerbasich

“It’s unethical to bring people into a lab and hit them real hard in the head,” Anthony Marino likes to joke.

Fortunately for researchers, crash test dummies can take the hit.

A recent Clemson Ph.D. graduate from the Department of Bioengineering, Marino focused his dissertation on examining the effectiveness of using the Hybrid III, a crash test dummy commonly used in football helmet testing, to replicate the hit a human would take on the field.

Marino conducted his research within the Clemson Headgear Impact Performance (CHIP) Laboratory. 

The CHIP Lab has made major strides in helmet safety. Co-directed by Dr. John DesJardins, professor of bioengineering and director of the Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute (RHBSSI), and Dr. Greg Batt, a professor in the Department of Food, Nutrition and Packaging Sciences and a faculty fellow at RHBSSI, the lab focuses on improving how protective headgear is tested and developed, particularly for high-impact sports like football. The goal is to bring greater accuracy to helmet testing systems to better protect athletes from concussions and traumatic brain injuries. 

How human-like is the Hybrid III neckform? 

Marino became interested in studying the neck component of the Hybrid III because it was designed to simulate a human response to a frontal car crash, not the multi-directional impacts seen in sports. 

“I saw the opportunity to look at the neck component because I thought that this crash test dummy neck that’s supposed to represent a human response to a frontal crash in a car was going to be a little different than a human response to a football impact.” 

To fill the gap left by the lack of active human data, Marino used a computational model in OpenSim to replicate the lab testing.

Though the Hybrid III is commonly used in the field for helmet impact testing, Marino’s research found that, to match the dummy’s performance in controlled low-speed movements, such as neck-bending tests, a comparable human would have to be about 300% stronger. 

During higher-speed impact testing, Marino found even larger differences. In one scenario, the computational model required a 1,000% increase in strength to replicate the Hybrid III’s response. Even with those increases, Marino said the computational human model could not fully replicate some of the Hybrid III’s injury metrics.

“You kind of had to create a superhuman to match our crash test dummy,” Marino said. 

The findings suggest the Hybrid III may overestimate some injury metrics because its neck responds differently than a human neck, but the dummy’s durability and repeatability are why it remains the industry standard in helmet testing.

The why behind the work

Marino’s work provides insight into the limitations of the Hybrid III, laying the groundwork for more realistic helmet safety testing in the future. 

Discovering tangible impacts is what motivates Marino. During his undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering at Auburn University, a professor introduced him to biomechanics and the idea that engineering principles could be applied to the human body.

“It’s just fascinating because the body really is a perfect machine when it’s working well, and we’re trying so hard to replicate it in other machines,” Marino said. “Then being able to see that you can directly help people, whether it’s injury prevention or rehabilitation and give people a better quality of life through engineering, completely flipped my career path.”

While the Hybrid III remains the industry standard, Marino’s findings raise important questions about how closely current testing systems reflect real human movement. 

“The dummy isn’t humanlike at all, but it’s giving us data that’s protecting the player so far,” Marino said. “The device is durable and repeatable, which is the real reason it’s adopted so widely in this industry.”

By Katie Gerbasich

In March, Dr. Ashlyn Hardie, Institute fellow from the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, co-led the second cohort of Starting Block Accelerator in Cape Town, South Africa, with Dr. Per Svensson from Louisiana State University. This initiative is the first of its kind, designed to address the research-practice gap in cross-sector work while advancing research in the Sport for Development and Peace (SDP) sector. 

Hardie describes this work in the SDP sector as “the intentional use of sport, recreation, play, and physical activity as a tool to achieve broader societal-level development goals. Often, those programmatic goals align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (known as the UN SDGs), and sport offers an alternative platform to tackle community issues.” 

According to the UN General Assembly and the UN Action Plan governing bodies, sport is viewed as a powerful tool for addressing key issues such as social integration, physical health and wellness, gender equality, peacebuilding, crime prevention and the development of sustainable communities. 

The Starting Block Accelerator is an initiative designed and implemented by Hardie and colleagues as a week-long capacity-building business accelerator program for sport-based nonprofits. Five leaders from organizations worldwide were invited to participate, each working directly with beneficiaries in their countries to tackle issues aligned with the UN SDGs. 

“We try very intentionally to have a really diverse group of participants in each cohort because we want them to speak to their experience with different types of funders, recreational tools and their experience navigating challenges in different countries on different continents, so they are not just learning from us but also from each other,” Hardie said. 

The Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute provided the initial seed funding in 2024 for the first-ever Starting Block Accelerator in London, England, enabling the team to gather preliminary data on the program’s effectiveness and secure support for this second round in Cape Town, South Africa. 

This year’s cohort included organizations that utilize a variety of sports, including soccer, ultimate frisbee, mountain biking, wrestling and rugby, with participants representing those organizations from Brazil, Botswana, South Africa, the Czech Republic and India. Two of the five participants were female founders. One was recently named Vice President of the African Women in Sports Initiative, and the other was a former Brazilian Olympic wrestler. 

The first three days of the Accelerator are curriculum-based, drawing on decades of sport-for-development research to create evidence-based pathways for management practices. For several reasons, research is challenging for practitioners to access and use. The objective of the Starting Block Accelerator is to support organizations through a research-backed curriculum that debunks misconceptions, provides networking opportunities and creates a collaborative learning environment.

“In the nonprofit world, people often rely on trial and error because they lack access to information, which can be expensive and time-consuming,” Hardie said. “We try to give them evidence-based strategies so they don’t have to just guess and repeat—research shows what is most likely to work.”

On the final day of the workshop, participants attended a networking session where they practiced pitching their organizations to well-known stakeholders in the SDP sector. Cape Town is an established, global hub for SDP work. This location provided strong access to a network of established leaders in the sport-for-development space, offering valuable connections and feedback to the emerging organizations in this cohort.

Hardie spoke about the impact of the first Starting Block in London, just one year ago, stating: “We’ve had major milestones for last year’s participants either from the connections that they made out of the networking day last year or skills that they implemented from the training of the workshop. For example, multiple London participants have found new funding success over the last year, linking back to our grant writing workshop or networking day.”

Cape Town’s proximity to Mozambique also allowed Hardie to visit Lwandi Surf, a participant from the 2025 London cohort, where she gathered insights on the program’s long-term impact and next steps.

“We want to just keep empowering these organizations to really optimize whatever they’re trying to do for the people they’re trying to serve, with more financial sustainability and safety than they’re doing before.”

Hardie is also the Founder and Executive Director of the New Way Sport Fund, which provides unrestricted funding, alongside consultancy-supported funding, to selected organizations working toward sustainable solutions to organizational challenges. 

“We’re not just going to buy soccer balls because they get lost or pop, “Hardie said. “But if you want to invest in something like solar panels, to solve an ongoing power issue, that’s a sustainable solution we want to help with, which a lot of funding mechanisms won’t allow.” 

NWSF is funded for a 2nd cycle, with applications expected to open in mid-May of this year.

April 6 recently marked the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace. Learn more about the role sport plays in driving social change here. 

By Katie Gerbasich

Kathryn Kisska-Schulze, J.D., LL.M., a Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute Faculty Fellow and the Elliott Davis Associate Professor in the School of Accountancy in The Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business, recently published work on athlete name, image and likeness (NIL) rights that was relied upon by the Tennessee legislature in 2025. Her article, An Evolving Landscape: Name, Image and Likeness Rights in High School Athletes, co-authored by Adam Epstein from Central Michigan University and Nathaniel Grow from Indiana University, was cited as a research reference and practice aid in drafting Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-25-1103, which addresses NIL rights.

The article examines the evolving NIL landscape for high school student-athletes, identifying potential financial risks and proposing a framework to better protect minor student-athletes entering endorsement agreements.

“This honor showcases the impact our research can have on major state legislative interests,” Kissaka-Schulze said.

In spring 2024, Kisska-Schulze launched the School of Accountancy’s first undergraduate sports law course. She also teaches a graduate sports law course for the College of Business’ Master of Science in Sports Business and Analytics program.

Kisska-Schulze has served as chair of the Sports and Entertainment Law Section of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business, represents the College of Business on Clemson University’s Faculty Athletic Council, and was recently named a Brooks Sports Science Institute Fellow.

Individuals who suffer from chronic pain have increasingly come to rely on kratom, a Southeast Asian plant whose principal psychoactive alkaloids, mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH), may soon become Schedule I Controlled Substances in the United States. The two compounds bind to, and partially activate, opioid receptors in the brain.

“People in Southeast Asia have long relied on teas brewed from kratom leaves not only to manage pain but to ease the symptoms of opiate withdrawal,” said Bryan E. Denham, Ph.D., Campbell Professor of Sports Communication in the Department of Communication at Clemson. “Although kratom is not entirely safe, it appears to be less hazardous than concentrated, synthetic versions of 7-OH, manufactured by unscrupulous firms. Synthetics are sold at gas stations and vape stores and are packaged to attract the attention of high-school and college-aged individuals.”

Denham’s study appears in the Journal of Substance Use and addresses the extent to which kratom use correlates with health concerns and signs of dependency on other substances. One finding showed that individuals struggling to quit prescription pain relievers were more than four times as likely as others to have used kratom, a substance the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers “drug of concern.” In July 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advised the DEA to add mitragynine and 7-OH to the list of Controlled Substances, and the DEA is currently considering that recommendation.

“It will be interesting to see what the DEA chooses to do in the coming months,” Denham said. “It announced plans in 2016 to ban mitragynine and 7-OH, but it received significant pushback from kratom users. This time, the FDA has made it a point to state plainly that its recommendation does not include the kratom plant itself. It is primarily interested in the two alkaloids and especially the hazardous synthetic products. A trade group, the American Kratom Association, has endorsed the recommended actions on mitragynine and 7-OH.”

Denham studies the media, health, and policy aspects of substance use in sport and society. He said that in sport, athletes have used kratom to increase energy and to recuperate from intense exercise. Some athletes believe it enhances their focus during competition, and some experiment with it for pain relief. Technically, kratom is not a banned substance, but the United States Anti-Doping Agency advises athletes to avoid using it given potential side effects. Athletes and non-athletes alike should appreciate that kratom is a drug, not a dietary supplement, and they should be aware of manipulative labels on synthetic substances.

In addition to his study in the Journal of Substance Use, Denham has examined the agenda-building function of mass media on kratom policy, exploring how coverage in major national news outlets and regional news organizations has impacted regulatory action. Denham said the Tampa Bay Times, in particular, has examined kratom use in depth, and its reporting has impacted coverage elsewhere in addition to policy conversations at the state and national levels.

By Griffin Barfield

Each year, the Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute supports Clemson’s student body by expanding access to scholarships and enhancing experiential learning opportunities, providing funding to various undergraduate and graduate students who are studying sport in their disciplines.

Through annual research awards and professorship funding endowed to faculty in the Departments of Automotive Engineering, Communication, Marketing and Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, graduate students are hired to engage in research activities affecting the field of sports science.

This year, two of the Institute’s ‘legacy professors’ – Bryan Denham, Ph.D., in the Department of Communication in the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences and Angeline Scheinbaum, Ph.D., in the Department of Marketing in the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business – funded two graduate students each at Clemson University. 

These students are four of the seven graduate students that the Institute has supported over the last academic year. 

Within the Department of Communication, two research assistants have been analyzing social networks and sports on a global scale with sports communication faculty. 

Cassidy Gruber and Erin Knight have been researching social media responses that have been presented during the PGA Tour and LIV golf merger, looking to find the role of care during organizational changes. After reworking the literature review, they aim to have a manuscript titled Understanding the role of care in communicating organizational change: A social network analysis of the PGA Tour-LIV golf controversy, published in the Social Media + Society journal.

Assistant professors, Virginia Harrison, Ph.D., and Brandon Boatwright, Ph.D., will be spearheading the manuscript. 

“The Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute has given me a unique and rewarding opportunity to incorporate my strategic communication background into sports science research this semester,” Gruber said. “I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of a motivated research team and contributing to meaningful projects!” 

Knight is also working to understand the social media conversation of sportswashing and nation branding, which has become a rising issue from the political lens of sports. This is her first assignment as a research assistant, and she will continue her work into the Spring 2026 semester. 

“It’s been really exciting to be a part of the research process in this way,” Knight said, “especially with such an interesting focal point.” 

Boatwright and Harrison are also faculty fellows of the Institute. 

In the Department of Marketing, research assistants Sairah Abraham and Cara Levin work closely with Dr. Scheinbaum, the Institute’s Dan Duncan Endowed Professor of Sports Marketing. 

The two have centered their research on sports marketing and consumer behavior, focusing on Corporate Social Responsibility over the last year with their team. The pair have been examining sport sponsorship as a form of corporate community involvement, investigating how local consumers view sponsor brands and exploring their feelings of gratitude. 

Their team has found outcomes through four large-scale field studies across three professional sports: automotive racing, PGA golf, and USA professional cycling. The research project under the direction of Dr. Scheinbaum found that consumer-corporate identification perceptions help the sponsor-event fit, and the consumer intentions to support sponsor brands, allowing the results to assist with local sponsor brands’ strategies.

“As a Brooks RA, it’s exciting to see how psychology, sports and marketing can team up,” Abraham said. “Each brings unique strengths to interdisciplinary studies that advance research that captures both the science of people and the spirit of the game!” 

Levin has also looked into how sponsorship and community engagement initiatives influence consumer perceptions of the brand’s authenticity, ethical leadership and trust. She has a background in Industrial-Organizational (I/O) Psychology, using that to see how corporate strategy and stakeholder response are affected.

“Clemson’s drive powers both our athletics and research,” Levin said.

As their research wraps up and the semester comes to a close, the students will be reporting on any outcomes or taking their work into 2026.

By Katie Gerbasich

Division 1 student-athletes already battle the complexities of balancing classes with practices and a social life. When medical conditions emerge, the situation is elevated to a new level. Using funding from the Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute (RHBSSI), Department of Communication faculty and RHBSSI fellows, Brandon Boatwright, Ph.D., and Rikishi Simith-Rey, Ph.D., are conducting an exploratory study, hoping to illuminate student-athletes’ challenges as they compete at a high level while managing chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases. 

His own journey with an autoimmune disease inspired Boatwright. After a conversation with former Division Ⅰ athlete, Smith-Rey, the idea for the study was born. The two are now working with students Marissa Bennett and Ava Quallen, from the Departments of Communication and Health Science, respectively, to find ways to assist these athletes. 

“Life as a student-athlete is complicated and complex already, but to feel like you’re fighting against your own body in the context of being a college student and trying to navigate your schedule builds the stresses of all that,” Boatwright said. 

A key point in the research has been identifying what resources are available for these individuals. There is a fluctuation in availability among Division Ⅰ programs, and an even greater disparity when comparing Division Ⅰ  to Division Ⅱ.  

“When we think about resources here at Clemson, student-athletes have some of the best stuff, but not everyone goes to Clemson,” Smith-Rey said. “Not everyone, even if you are D1, has the same resources, so how can we identify what resources student athletes need? What ways can we assist them in communicating their needs to other stakeholders in their lives?”

The study is currently in the data collection process. The team has spoken with different student-athletes across various sports with Type 1 Diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and Crohn’s disease, among other illnesses. 

“The folks we have spoken with have been incredible people and athletes competing at such a super high level,” Boatwright said. “They are just incredible people for having to deal with the things that they have dealt with and still preserving.”

Smith-Rey commends these interviews for being a space where these student-athletes feel seen. Often, chronic illnesses or autoimmune diseases have an element of invisibility that makes communication a challenge. 

After speaking with the team, these athletes feel like someone understands their unique story. Boatwright shared a narrative about an athlete with Rheumatoid Arthritis. 

“They would just have to wake up and tell players, teammates, coaches or someone that it’s not gonna happen because I can’t get out of bed,” Boatwright said. “‘I physically just can not sit up enough to get out of bed. It’s just one of those days.’” 

Athletic programs and teams can become better advocates by better understanding the challenges these athletes face due to their medical conditions. 

“We can be that support button right now,”  Smith-Rey said. “Someone is speaking up for you and looking for ways to assist you in this.” 

If you are or were an athlete who competed at the Division Ⅰ  to Division Ⅱ level, are no more than five years removed from your sport, and were diagnosed with a chronic illness or autoimmune disease before competing in college, click here to set up an interview. 

By Evelyn Lane

Throughout the 2025 summer, Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, Dr. Felipe Tobar, has been conducting sport research around the world. From Clemson to Germany, Australia and Taiwan, Tobar has taken his passion for soccer and research on the intersection of sport, tourism, history, events, politics, and technology across the world.

Holocaust remembrance connected to German soccer culture

In early May, Tobar took a group of students from Clemson to Germany to study “​​the Culture of Remembrance and Political Activism in German Football.” The first stop was Berlin, where they toured the city and its remembrance sites to help students understand that the impact of the Holocaust was not solely confined to concentration camps, but weaved into daily life, including soccer. They also attended the Babelsberg 03 vs. FC Carl Zeiss Jena match and witnessed the “Alle zusammen – voran 03!” initiative (“All Together – Leading 03!”), which is a campaign working to eliminate barriers in the stadium and in the way people think about inclusion in soccer between players with and without disabilities.

The next stop was Bremen, where the group walked around the city learning about the systematic use of forced labor under the Nazi regime and how the local community was fully aware of all crimes, and how political engagement in soccer is a necessity. After the walking tour, they visited Bunker Valentin, which was a Nazi-era submarine bunker, where they reflected on how to understand the victims in the eyes of soccer to present them as fans who never got to support their club again. They also got to tour Werder Bremen and retrace the Nazi-era history. After that tour, they got to witness the Werder Bremen vs RB Leipzig game and interact with locals.

After Bremen, they visited Hamburg, Dortmund, and Cologne, where they visited the FC St. Pauli Museum, HSV Museum, Borussia Dortmund, and the FC Köln Stadium. Not only did they get to experience German culture through soccer matches and stadium and museum tours, but they also gained a deeper understanding of how players, directors, and fans were important in helping build a culture of remembrance.

“Football clubs have the power, and the social responsibility, to remember, speak out, and act.” – Dr. Felipe Tobar

Their last stop was in Munich, where they played street soccer with locals and learned how the game of soccer at any level can teach important values that immigrant youth can take with them throughout their lives and help them adapt to new communities. The group then visited the FC Bayern Museum and reflected on how Bayern players and directors were affected by Nazi ideologies and how Munich played a central role in Hitler’s rise. The students also presented social media campaigns they had created focusing on topics such as racism, religious intolerance, and intersectionality in soccer. 

During and after the trip, Tobar initiated two different studies. The first is about stickers. He noticed that around the soccer stadiums, there were stickers everywhere. These can easily be overlooked, but when he looked at these, he saw a version of fan expression, fans communicating their social and political beliefs and how German soccer culture is a vehicle of political activism. The second is a study focused on the benefits of teaching Holocaust history and how German soccer clubs can collaborate with remembrance centers and former concentration camps to attract new audiences and use soccer’s influence to communicate Holocaust history and ensure that it never happens again. 

Presentations abroad

Tobar was invited as a visiting researcher and teacher to the National Taichung University of Education in Taiwan, where he had the opportunity to speak at three different undergraduate courses. He shared his experiences working with Paralympic soccer athletes and the importance of respect. He also presented his teaching philosophy, which is one where it is important to promote kindness and learning to create more engaged and curious students. 

In Australia, he presented at the 16th International Conference on Sport and Society at Monash University in Melbourne. He presented his paper about English soccer stadiums, specifically Liverpool FC and how the presence of tourists and their use of mobile phones affect the local supporters’ match-day experiences. Through this study, he found that the presence of football tourists and their online engagement can be disruptive to the local football culture. He plans to share these results with both club and English Premier League teams in the future. 

American and European soccer research 

During Clemson’s first-ever Paralympic soccer match, Tobar conducted a survey to understand the perception of players with disabilities. He discovered that 84% of participants had changed their opinions positively towards para-athletes. He also surveyed the perceptions and attitudes of long-term volunteers towards people with disabilities.  

Additionally, Tobar has two studies where he focuses on soccer and environmental sustainability. The first follows his attendance at the UEFA EURO, where the institution implemented a €29.6 million investment in environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. The tournament achieved a 21% reduction in emissions compared to initial forecasts, largely through measures like encouraging public transport and minimizing flights. This study was focused on whether these changes towards sustainability changed fan behavior after the championship.

The second was focused on the Clemson Women’s Soccer team. In 2024, Tobar accompanied the team to Spain, where they observed how facilities and clubs tackle climate change. Now that a year has passed, he is asking 19 players and two managers if they have changed their behaviors and show that the players can have a voice and help others become more environmentally friendly.

The documentary

Tobar has recently launched his documentary called “The Match That Not Every Club Wants to Play.” This documentary takes viewers to Spain, showing the Real Madrid soccer club and how it attempted to keep its role in the Spanish Civil War a secret. It also takes us to FC St. Pauli in Germany, where the club is a symbol of resistance, and where the fans demand accountability for the club’s Nazi-era past.

Just like Tobar, this documentary is making its way around the world. It debuted at the Tercer Tiempo-Festival Mundial de Cine Futbolero in Bogotá, Colombia, where his father is from. There, he received a “Special Mention” for the quality of the production and thought-provoking investigation. Additionally, it was the first film in six years to have a full-house at the viewing. 

Soon, the documentary will be shown at the Sports & Entertainment Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama, the Festigol, Festival de Cine + Futbol, in Santiago, Chile, and at the Paladino D’Oro in Palermo, Italy, which is the world’s oldest sport film festival. 

Coming up…

Following his first documentary, Tobar is in the process of developing another around the unspoken functions of Weserstadion in Bremen during the Nazi regime. The Nazis took it and used Eastern European slaves to build military defense structures. The stadium also facilitated the distribution of furniture from Jewish houses, and even today, much of this furniture is still not found. 

Additionally, Tobar is studying how cultures influence how coaches coach their players. He plans to interview professional and collegiate coaches to understand how culture shapes play style. His brother is a coach for the most important Division One team in Ecuador, which is inspiring this study. 

He is also working with Master’s students and colleagues from Colombia, Spain, and Chile to take a look at paralympic soccer and analyze how countries organize offensively and defensively. They are asking the question, “What is the best way to win games?” Paralympic players expend three times more energy than normal players, so they work to prove that the best paralympic teams play zone, which allows more conservation of energy, versus a man-to-man structure. 

Housed in the Department of Communication and currently led by RHBSSI Faculty Fellow, Brandon Boatwright, Ph.D., the Clemson University Social Media Center (SMLC) is an interdisciplinary lab that utilizes industry-leading social analytics software to harvest, analyze and engage in social media conversations across thousands of sources of digital data. The SMLC is a cutting-edge laboratory that supplies researchers at Clemson with data for a diverse range of topics and projects. 

Sports researchers at Clemson have utilized the SMLC to advance their studies in the behavioral sciences, such as in sports communication and education. Boatwright has partnered with other fellows in the Department of Communication, such as Virginia Harrison, Ph.D., and fellows Sarah Stokowski, Ph.D., and Chris Corr, Ph.D., from Clemson University’s athletic leadership program in the Department of Educational and Organizational Leadership Development on recent studies that have examined social media trends to collect qualitative data.

Published this year in the journal Communication & Sport, a study by Boatwright, Stokowski, Corr and colleague Marry Holly from the University of Florida, titled The Local Perspective: Regional Television Framing of Name, Image, and Likeness, utilized the SMLC “…to examine the manner in which local television media in the United States framed NIL during news broadcasts,” analyzing television broadcast content across the United States during Fall 2024. Helpful for collegiate athletic administrators, the study revealed that a similar number of comments framed NIL positively, for promotion, and negatively, for its disruption.

Prior to this, in 2023, Harrison and colleagues from her department, as well as from The Pennsylvania State University, announced their study, “Save Our Spikes”: Social Media Advocacy and Fan Reaction to the End of Minor League Baseball, published in Communication & Sport. The team utilized the SMLC to collect “…social media data to extract fan emotions during identity threats” on X (formerly known as Twitter) surrounding the decline of Minor League Baseball during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. “…the study found that most discussions of contraction were negative in tone and contained emotions like anger” and, overall, made an important contribution to the field “…by bringing advocacy communication into the discussion of sport fandom” and using social media data to shed light on sport fan emotions during a crisis.

The SMLC serves as one of the premier social media laboratories in the nation with the ability to harvest data, only scratching the surface of social media research and application. To that end, the SMLC provides students and researchers with tools and techniques to analyze and make sense out of datasets. The SMLC can support various methodological approaches from content analysis, sentiment analysis, network analysis and more. Click here to learn more about the SMLC.

By Evelyn Lane

In June 2025, Robert H. Brooks Sports Science Institute Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management, Ashlyn Hardie, Ph. D., recently embarked on a journey to Costa Rica. She was accompanied by Mike Clark, former assistant director for Clemson Student-Athlete Development, Nick Singleton, assistant director for Clemson Student-Athlete Development, and nine female student-athletes from Clemson Women’s Rowing, Track and Field, Softball and Gymnastics. 

Clemson Student-Athlete Development (SADEV) is a branch within Clemson Athletics where staff work with student-athletes to help them grow in their leadership skills, prepare for post-graduation careers and work on holistic human development. The Director of Student-Athlete Development, Tori Niemann, and Dr. Hardie originally connected because of Hardie’s research expertise on women in sport and sport in the international context. Subsequently, Hardie began to assist the SADEV staff in their goal to ensure the service trip to Costa Rica was intentional, impactful, had measurable research outcomes, and would benefit the Costa Rican community. 

Hardie’s research emphasizes the importance of understanding intention versus impact in international development and service work. Her mission is to help others understand that in order to make a positive change, there has to be more than just positive intention; service providers and volunteers also have to acknowledge and embrace the culture and norms of the country they are in to optimize positive outcomes for all parties. According to Hardie, she was really impressed with the SADEV staff’s intentionality in learning about ethical international service practice and prioritizing that in the trip preparations. 

Embarking on the trip

On the trip, all of the student-athletes were women, and the two staff members leading the trip, Clark and Singleton, were men. So, in addition to Hardie’s professional contributions, she was excited to be an example to these young women of an experienced female traveler. Hardie shared, “While it wasn’t the intended purpose of my role on the trip, I cherish any opportunity to be an example for young women of how to break out of their comfort zone, embrace different cultures and different people, and seize opportunities to grow through travel. The idea of traveling internationally as a young woman can feel daunting or unsafe, but it makes all the difference to have an example and mentor who can share some helpful tips and support in the process.” 

During their service trip, student-athletes learned about the local communities and cultures of Costa Rica, explored the city, zip-lined through the rainforest, gained deeper insight into the ecological elements of Costa Rica and the importance of eco-friendly practices in their culture. The main purpose of the trip, which took up four of the six days of the trip, was to work at a school in the rural mountains of Costa Rica called La Jolla. There, they helped build a community space with a kitchen and bathroom area, along with more creative tasks such as painting signs in English with the school’s core values so that the Costa Rican students could learn English and important values such as empathy and self-awareness. Clemson athletes also helped with general clean-up, participated in a Father’s Day fundraiser and dance classes, and supported with other tasks during the week. 

Service trips can benefit both the community that is being assisted and leave participating volunteers with lasting memories, a greater understanding of other cultures, and comfort traveling to a new environment. To this end, Hardie states that there were three main takeaways that were voiced from the Clemson group collectively at the end of their travels.

The first was that the student-athletes expanded their Clemson horizons while abroad and stepped out of their comfort zones. On day one of the trip, the athletes mostly hung out with their teammates and were more reserved; by day six, they formed a little sisterhood and had shared experiences and developed friendships across teams as a result.

The second takeaway was that the student-athletes were able to recognize differences in the way Americans live and what many people take for granted every day. When people picture a trip to Costa Rica, they visualize lying out on the beach during the day and using their resort WiFi to wind down at night, and trust that there will be water coming out of the showerhead so they can rinse off the sand after a long day at the beach. Instead, the women on this trip experienced inconsistency in cell service and WiFi, and the water being shut off for a night at their homestays as a result of a small earthquake (that was not felt by people, but as a safety precaution). Although this made individuals anxious and feel inconvenienced, their host families explained this was relatively normal, which ultimately broadened the scope of Clemson athletes’ understanding of how experiences can vary greatly in other parts of the world.

The last takeaway that the group expressed was that they had a greater desire to connect and contribute to the community surrounding them. The girls were nervous at first, but once they saw all that they could accomplish, they took pride in their work. They also dove more into the culture, they practiced the language and overcame their own discomfort to connect with their environment. These learnings applied to both the student-athletes and the staff leaders alongside Hardie, who acknowledged in real-time that they were in a new place and were able to embrace new things that they had not experienced before.

Hardie states that this trip allowed for self-reflecting and conquering challenges that the group does not normally encounter day-to-day in Clemson, South Carolina. Instead of preparing for a hard exam or training for a new personal record in their respective sport, the athletes had to navigate language barriers so they could communicate with their host families and learn new norms, try new foods, and navigate new cities/towns.

Six days is a short amount of time to fully appreciate being immersed in a new culture, but the student-athletes made the most out of their time. They connected with the locals and attempted to speak the native language, and even participated in a dance class. Cultural acclimation can take weeks for some, but Hardie was proud of them for going out and trying new things and maximizing the time they had.

Aftermath of the service trip

Hardie says that, for the staff and faculty who go on service trips such as these, it allows for moments of learning and reflection that can be utilized to inform future Clemson student-athletes’ community service projects. The impact this group made does not just stay in Costa Rica; it follows them back to Clemson and influences their future projects. 

In addition to the service trip itself, Hardie and Niemann partnered together on a research initiative to assess the impact of these opportunities for Clemson student-athletes and donor support. Before, during, and after this trip, Hardie collected data. She challenged the girls to reflect on things like how their identities influence the spaces they are interacting in, cultural understanding and integration, and their own personal development from the trip. She took ethnographic notes throughout this time about her experiences working and interacting with the group, and her observations from the week. 

Hardie will be analyzing the qualitative data and asking questions such as, “How did the relationship between the student-athlete development staff and the student-athletes change?” and “What were the most meaningful outcomes for those student-athletes?” and “What was the change in their global perspective?” The information can be used for future trips to prepare student-athletes on how to better interact with other countries, and to seek and interact with donors for projects such as these. 

In the future, Hardie is excited to continue working on and supporting international service projects with SADEV as a point-of-contact, regardless of whether or not she travels alongside the team, to provide insight and advice as to how to prepare student-athletes before travelling abroad, as well as support in future research endeavors.