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University of Richmond Athletics Announces Launch of Spider Performance

RICHMOND, Va. — University of Richmond Athletics has announced the launch of Spider Performance (SP4), a comprehensive program designed to support Spiders in their pursuit of athletic, academic, personal, and professional achievement. SP4 is the evolution of longtime performance and development programming geared toward supporting Richmond student-athletes in all areas of their lives. The program provides tools, […]

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University of Richmond Athletics Announces Launch of Spider Performance

RICHMOND, Va. — University of Richmond Athletics has announced the launch of Spider Performance (SP4), a comprehensive program designed to support Spiders in their pursuit of athletic, academic, personal, and professional achievement.
 
SP4 is the evolution of longtime performance and development programming geared toward supporting Richmond student-athletes in all areas of their lives. The program provides tools, resources, connections, and support for Spider athletes in competition, in the classroom, and in their careers, with the aim of building champions for life.
 
“Now more than ever, we need to make sure we are providing our Spiders everything they need to succeed. That means helping them reach their athletic and academic potential while also guiding their growth as individuals and preparing them for life after college sports,” said Vice President and Director of Athletics John Hardt. “Spider Performance is the means through which we ensure the best possible student-athlete experience for every single Spider.”
 
Spider Performance integrates the Academic Support, Sports Medicine, Leadership, Strength & Conditioning, and Mental Health & Well-Being departments of Richmond Athletics under the mission of helping student-athletes thrive athletically, academically, personally, and professionally. SP4 will be led by Senior Associate Athletics Director for Leadership & Student-Athlete Development Lauren Wicklund.

“This program will have a profound impact on every team, every coach, and every student-athlete at Richmond,” said Wicklund. “SP4 is dedicated to developing champions for life — on the field, in the classroom, and in their communities. In a time of transformation across college athletics, we remain committed to placing well-being, individual development, and excellence at the heart of everything we do, and SP4 is a testament to that mission.”
 
For more information on Spider Performance and its efforts to promote student-athlete achievement at Richmond, please visit RichmondSpiders.com.
 
 

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Del Vecchio Returns as Assistant Coach

Story Links ALBANY, N.Y. – The University at Albany field hockey head coach Phil Sykes has announced the hiring of recent graduate Isabella Del Vecchio as an assistant coach. “We are very excited to be adding Isabella Del Vecchio as an assistant coach,” said Sykes. “She was a strong player for us and, more importantly, a […]

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Del Vecchio Returns as Assistant Coach

ALBANY, N.Y. – The University at Albany field hockey head coach Phil Sykes has announced the hiring of recent graduate Isabella Del Vecchio as an assistant coach.
 
“We are very excited to be adding Isabella Del Vecchio as an assistant coach,” said Sykes. “She was a strong player for us and, more importantly, a really great teammate and leader. I think she will add a lot to our staff.”
 
Del Vecchio returns to the Great Danes after graduating with her Bachelor of Science in Human Biology in May 2025. While a student-athlete, she was an active member of the Student-Athletes Advisory Committee and the Hidden Opponent, a campus organization meant to spread awareness for student-athlete mental health.
 
“I am very excited to become a part of the University at Albany coaching staff,” said Del Vecchio. “I have loved being a player on the team these past four years, and I am grateful for the opportunity to coach for such a great program. I would like to say thank you to Phil [Sykes] and [Andy Thornton] for the chance to work with [them]. I look forward to the upcoming season.”
 
As a student-athlete, Del Vecchio was a member of the Great Danes’ field hockey team for four years. The Somers, N.Y. native regularly competed for UAlbany with 59 total appearances and 22 starts. She scored her first collegiate goal as a sophomore and followed with seven goals as a junior. Over the last two years of her career, she played in all but one game. 
 
Outside of her time as a Great Dane, Del Vecchio spent her time with field hockey camps of all ages. Since June 2021, she has coached for New York Hockey Club while taking advantage of additional volunteer opportunities with Guilderland Elementary School and UAlbany’s Field Hockey Youth Day. In addition to field hockey, Del Vecchio was a counselor for the YMCA and an MRI scheduler for the Bone and Joint Center.
 
Keep up with all of the latest news, highlights, and insights on UAlbany field hockey by following the team on X, Instagram, and Facebook.
 

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Iowa Department of Education awards over $2 million in therapeutic classroom grants to 8 …

The Iowa Department of Education today awarded over $2 million in competitive grants to eight school districts to establish therapeutic classrooms for learners whose emotional or behavioral needs impact their ability to be successful in their learning environment. “Therapeutic classrooms across Iowa provide vibrant, safe and healthy learning environments that best support students’ individual cognitive […]

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Iowa Department of Education awards over $2 million in therapeutic classroom grants to 8 ...


The Iowa Department of Education today awarded over $2 million in competitive grants to eight school districts to establish therapeutic classrooms for learners whose emotional or behavioral needs impact their ability to be successful in their learning environment.

“Therapeutic classrooms across Iowa provide vibrant, safe and healthy learning environments that best support students’ individual cognitive and behavioral needs,” said Iowa Department of Education Director McKenzie Snow. “We commend this year’s awardees and their community partners for their leadership and commitment to modeling best practices in skill building, stress and trauma coping, mental health treatment, and crisis prevention and intervention.” 

The districts awarded a Therapeutic Classroom Incentive Grant for the 2025-26 school year are:

  • Bondurant-Farrar CSD
  • Cedar Rapids CSD
  • Cherokee CSD
  • Davenport CSD
  • Durant CSD
  • Keokuk CSD
  • Pella CSD
  • Spencer CSD

The Therapeutic Classroom Incentive Grant was established through state legislation signed into law in 2020 and is part of a statewide effort to increase mental health supports for children, youth and families. Now in its fifth round of funding, the awardees may use the grants to establish new classrooms or enhance critical components into current classrooms or programs that are being developed as therapeutic classrooms. Therapeutic supports include such things as skill building, support to cope with stress and trauma, mental health treatment and crisis intervention and follow-up. 

In determining awards, priority was given to competitive district applicants that had applied previously and not received an award and to new district applicants that scored competitively. Additional consideration was given to ensure representation across small, medium and large districts. Applicants collaborating with other agencies to provide the therapeutic classrooms across Iowa’s Behavioral Health Districts were also prioritized. 

Proposals submitted by the eight awarded districts will serve over 150 pre-K through grade 12 students, establish 17 new therapeutic classrooms and will expand mental health supports for youth across eight counties located in five of the state’s Behavioral Health Districts. 

Grants will be distributed this fall for district implementation during the 2025-26 school year.

More information about Therapeutic Classroom Incentive Grants is available on the Iowa Department of Education’s website.

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How a young Minnesota dancer stepped through mental health hurdles

How a young Minnesota dancer stepped through mental health hurdles – CBS Minnesota Watch CBS News Jennifer Mayerle shares what it took to help a young dancer get back his zest for life. View CBS News In Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now […]

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'Dr. Marcy' Gets the Gold

Newswise — In December, Simone Biles posted a photo with Marcia Faustin, MD’13, FAAFP, to her millions of Instagram followers, offering thanks for “keeping me sane” amid the excitement and pressure of the 2024 Paris Olympics. (Biles won three gold medals.)  Biles’ teammate Sunisa “Suni” Lee called Faustin a “saving angel” for recognizing that the […]

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'Dr. Marcy' Gets the Gold

Newswise — In December, Simone Biles posted a photo with Marcia Faustin, MD’13, FAAFP, to her millions of Instagram followers, offering thanks for “keeping me sane” amid the excitement and pressure of the 2024 Paris Olympics. (Biles won three gold medals.) 

Biles’ teammate Sunisa “Suni” Lee called Faustin a “saving angel” for recognizing that the sudden inflammation in her body in February 2023 wasn’t allergies, but a serious kidney issue. With Faustin’s guidance, Lee navigated her health condition and went on to nab a gold medal in Paris. 

These are just a few of the many praises the elite gymnasts have given Faustin — aka “Dr. Marcy”— since she became co-head physician for the USA Gymnastics women’s national team in 2019. 

Since then, Faustin has developed close bonds with the athletes at practice, camps, competitions and at the past two Summer Olympics, in Tokyo and Paris. 

Spectators might assume her role mostly involves treating sprains and pain, but the job is also that of a confidant who helps some of the most-watched competitors on Earth maintain their mental health. 

“To watch those ladies win gold medals, and to work hard and overcome their challenges, it makes my soul smile,” Faustin said. “I get teary-eyed because I know how much each of them overcame on their journey to success.” 

Career springboard started at Pritzker

Faustin, a gymnast and volleyball player during her high school years in Orland Park, expanded her athletic resume as a track and field star at Loyola University Chicago, where she initially intended to major in nursing. 

But when the nursing program’s clinical rotations calendar didn’t align with her athletic commitments, she set her sights on medical school.

After earning a premed degree, Faustin came to the Pritzker School of Medicine on scholarship and focused on family and sports medicine. 

“I was surrounded by awesome classmates and received an amazing education,” Faustin said. 

Her 88-student class was tight-knit; in their free time, they played flag football and broomball and ran races across campus. Many of her classmates remain close friends, and one is now her husband, Toussaint Mears-Clarke, MD’13, MBA, FAAFP, a family medicine physician and obstetrician. 

Faustin’s medical school mentor, psychiatrist Elizabeth Kieff, MD’03, Pritzker’s former director of wellness, spoke at their wedding. 

Physical and emotional care for athletes

Through a University of Chicago Medicine connection, Faustin eagerly took an opportunity to volunteer at USA Gymnastics competitions. That effort led to her current role with the organization, a job she shares with New York-based Ellen Casey, MD, FACSM, FAAPMR. 

The work is collaborative. Sometimes Faustin needs to bring in specialists like orthopaedic surgeons or physical therapists, but her main function is to take what she calls a “bio-psycho-social” approach to the athletes’ care. 

That means treating their muscular and skeletal issues, as well as understanding their mental health and how social surroundings can impact it.

“There are a lot of external influences they face,” said Faustin, who encouraged the Olympic gymnasts to minimize or avoid social media while in Paris and Tokyo, establishing “no-phone zones” where they could play cards and socialize. “We just stay focused.” 

Faustin praises USA gymnasts for being grateful, hardworking, phenomenal competitors — but she has equal respect for the collegiate athletes and everyday people she treats. 

“I find as much joy in helping a patient who now can go dance at their granddaughter’s bat mitzvah,” she said. 

Supporting a higher standard

Faustin’s arrival to the team came after a turbulent and transformative time. In 2016, an investigation by The Indianapolis Star revealed that top executives at USA Gymnastics failed to alert authorities to many allegations of sexual abuse by coaches. 

Hundreds of gymnasts came forward to say they were sexually assaulted or abused by members of the USA Gymnastics staff and medical team. Among the offenders: team doctor Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to federal and state charges and was sentenced to 100 years in prison. 

Since then, USA Gymnastics has made many changes and efforts to rebuild trust, including new safety policies and procedures, along with the addition of a chief of athlete health and wellness position. 

The most important aspect of caring for patients of all ages, levels and backgrounds is building trust. “It goes both ways; patients need to trust the physicians and vice versa,” she said. “It’s critical to have trust so we can help them make collaborative decisions when the world is watching and do what’s best for them, in the present and for their future.” 

Faustin understands the influence — and visibility — of her role is more critical than ever. 

“It’s a blessing to be their physician and to have them trust me with vulnerable information that they might not even share with their significant other or family members,” she said. “I really hold that trust to a high standard.” 

A doctor for all sports, seasons

Outside of her commitments traveling with USA Gymnastics, which total about 40 days annually, the Sacramento-based Faustin is an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Davis, where she is co-head physician for the school’s 25 sports teams. 

Never content to rest on the sidelines, she’s also the team doctor for the Sacramento Republic FC soccer team. 

“It’s a busy life,” Faustin said. “But I love the people and the relationships I get to develop.” 

As one of only a handful of Black female sports medicine doctors nationwide, Faustin knows her representation is important. Less than 3% of all U.S. physicians are Black women, and even fewer are in sports medicine, she said. 

While her schedule doesn’t leave time for much else, Faustin did speak as part of Pritzker’s Bowman Society Lecture Series in January. The topic: addressing mental health in athletes. 

“I’m grateful to have gone to Pritzker, and it’s given me a great foundation to practice medicine,” she said. “So, I want to give back.”

For photos and more information, view the original article on the UChicago website.

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Laurie Hernandez on Mental Health Campaign, Studying Acting

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Sarah Hirshland's effort to transform the USOPC earns her Sports Executive of the Year honors

Sarah Hirshland could have dropped by Palais Brongniart just about any night in the Paris Games to hear the chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” coming from the atrium of the historic hall that once housed the city’s stock exchange. Whether it was swimmer Katie Ledecky adding to her medal count or the U.S. men’s basketball […]

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Sarah Hirshland's effort to transform the USOPC earns her Sports Executive of the Year honors

Sarah Hirshland could have dropped by Palais Brongniart just about any night in the Paris Games to hear the chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!” coming from the atrium of the historic hall that once housed the city’s stock exchange.

Whether it was swimmer Katie Ledecky adding to her medal count or the U.S. men’s basketball team closing out a win for the gold over host France, the building in the heart of Paris that became Team USA House for several months felt like a piece of home for American athletes and their supporters.

To Hirshland, the CEO of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, it has come to represent so much of the last year: success on the podium, building support around Team USA and powering a decade of sport that will redefine the movement domestically.

“Really, really amazing,” she said of the vibe at Team USA House. “And it’s sort of like, OK, we did this. We convened this energy that we all try to create around the sport and community in such a positive way. It was great.”

It was another highlight in a year that earned Hirshland Sports Executive of the Year honors at SBJ’s Sports Business Awards, a category that included Netflix executive Bela Bajaria, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and commissioners Gary Bettman of the NHL and Adam Silver of the NBA.

The ceremony in May capped a year in which Team USA achieved historic results in Paris, winning the Olympic medal count and placing third in the Paralympics. With the USOPC’s commercial assets tied up in its joint venture with LA28 (U.S Olympic and Paralympic Properties), Hirshland worked to create new assets, build around storytelling and increase other revenue streams. And she focused on the long-term future of the movement, from ensuring the pipeline from collegiate sports to bringing in record donations and helping Salt Lake City win the right to host the Games in 2034.

“People rely on her. They appreciate her strategic judgment,” said USOPC Chairman Gene Sykes. “She has invested the time and effort and energy to develop personal relationships with everybody around the movement, inside and outside. She’s got great commercial judgment. She’s worked really, really hard to develop relationships with the commercial people that are in the [International Olympic Committee] right now. So at all levels, I think she’s doing the things that allow people to see the USOPC as a center of energy and leadership in this whole effort.”


Heading into 2024, Hirshland could feel the winds shift with the Paris Games on the horizon.

She had come to the organization in 2018, taking the CEO position as the USOPC was mired in crises and lawsuits around the abuse of athletes. Over her first several years, Hirshland and the USOPC worked to rebuild trust around the movement — from creating a set of standards and an auditing process for national governing bodies to increasing mental health resources for athletes. Those reforms sought to give athletes more voice in the movement while holding the NGBs and USOPC to good governance changes meant to address several issues and prevent abuse.

SBJ Sports Executives of the Year

2008: Tim Leiweke, AEG

2009:
Dick Ebersol, NBC Sports

2010: Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys

2011: George Bodenheimer, ESPN

2012: Roger Goodell, National Football League

2013: Scott Blackmun, U.S. Olympic Committee

2014: Gary Bettman, National Hockey League

2015: Adam Silver, National Basketball Association

2016: Joe Lacob, Golden State Warriors

2017: Tom Ricketts, Chicago Cubs

2018: Arthur Blank, AMB Sports and Entertainment

2019: Don Garber, Major League Soccer

2020: Jimmy Pitaro, ESPN

2021: Adam Silver, National Basketball Association

2022: Michael Rubin, Fanatics

2023: Eric Shanks, Fox Sports

2024: Jessica Berman, National Women’s Soccer League

With notable improvement in those areas — though, Hirshland notes, that work is never done — the USOPC entered the year with heightened anticipation of what Paris could be. Coming out of two COVID Games that presented their own challenges, the movement worldwide also saw the opportunity to revive interest in the movement.

Team USA met that moment, topping the medal count in the Olympics with 126, the highest for a non-boycotted Games outside of the United States, and finishing third in the Paralympics with 105.

That success took the full breadth of the movement, from the athletes who train for years to the NGBs that train them. For its part, the USOPC provides resources across the movement, including allocations to NGBs and athlete resources that cover everything from sports medicine to high-performance support. Under Hirshland, the USOPC has added 15 services staff focused on athlete mental health and created access to a larger nationwide network.

To Hirshland, the difficult reforms, changes to policy and personnel and compliance expectations across the movement translated to the podium. If athletes don’t have to worry about how well-run their NGBs are, they’re freed up to focus on their sport.

“A healthy organization that has high standards builds trust in the system,” said Rocky Harris, the USOPC’s chief of sport and athlete services. “Once they do that, the athletes feel like, ‘OK, all the good governance is there.’”

The USOPC extended its support during the Games. Its high-performance center has long served as a training refuge for Olympic athletes, and in Paris the USOPC kept it open during the Paralympics for the first time.

“That felt like they finally fully arrived, even if they had arrived many years ago,” said Harris of the Paralympians. “That meant a lot to them.”

For Hirshland, so did the moments when she got to see the rewards for the work of Team USA athletes she had come to know at the training center in Colorado Springs. Hirshland had spent time with the wrestlers, who will sometimes invite her over for lunches they make in the test kitchen. So Hirshland took time to watch 21-year-old Kennedy Blades win a silver medal in her first Olympics.

“We are lucky. We have a great group of athletes,” she said. “But it is markedly more than just that that drives those outcomes. … To see the performance that we saw in Paris across so many NGBs, actually, I would attribute it almost more to the work we had done in ethics and compliance coming out of the reform processes and getting these organizations sort of minding their P’s and Q’s and communicating more effectively with athletes about stuff that matters off the field of play, giving everybody a little more confidence and belief in the system.”


Snoop Dogg, Team USA House
Team USA House in Paris provided a central meeting point and brought entertainers (like Snoop Dogg), athletes, and fans together throughout the Games. Getty Images for NBC Universal

That confidence didn’t just come in competition. It came in finding and creating new storytelling opportunities and sources of revenue.

USOPP’s efforts are focused on signing domestic sponsors to deliver the LA28 Games, with Team USA assets packaged under the joint venture. It added six new sponsors in 2024, with Cisco and Dick’s Sporting Goods signing on through 2028. Just before the Paris opening, it announced a deal with Google to serve as Team USA’s AI search partner just for those Games.

Though USOPP is doing the selling, CEO John Slusher said it is getting help from Hirshland and the USOPC.

“She is fully supportive,” said Slusher, who took over at USOPP in December. “We work very closely with her team, whether they’re developing properties that we can help sell, which helps us both from a dollars perspective, but also from a brand perspective. If there’s people she has relationships with, she’s super helpful in helping us out on sales leads or putting good words in for us.”

Part of the work has been developing assets, with the launch of marketing and sponsorship platform Making Team USA last year. Xfinity served as presenting sponsor of the initiative, which focused on athletes’ journeys to the Paris Games.

It represented an evolving understanding of what Team USA could offer to USOPP, especially coming out of the pandemic and the struggles that meant for corporations.

“We’re rounding first base, headed for second on this one,” said Hirshland. “We were probably late to start thinking about how to play offense there, in recognizing that OPP’s incentives were very short-term and LA focused, and that meant that we were going to have to build capability in our shop as partners to them to think about how to build value and assets in the Team USA brand. Am I proud of where we are? Yes. Do I wish we were three years further along? Yes, but we’re in it. Making Team USA was a really critical start to that. I’m bullish that that has just begun to materialize as a really meaningful asset.”

Along the way, the USOPC has focused on building connections with existing partners. Delta was the first to sign as a founding partner in 2020 (meaning the USOPC ended a decades-long relationship with United), so while USOPP and LA28 are focused on delivering their Games, the USOPC was able to work with Delta on the logistics of athletes traveling with javelins, or the wheelchair basketball team needing 42 chairs — one each for competition and another for daily use.

“Because of her own background as a commercial person in the sports world, she was very easily able to kind of put USOPC team members and capabilities in front of USOPP in a way that allowed for a lot of collaboration,” said Sykes.

That collaboration came in Paris, where Team USA House offered the chance for domestic sponsors to activate on the ground. Google, Michelob Ultra, Oakley, Ralph Lauren and Xfinity were among those to take the opportunity, with Nike and New Era among those in the Team USA shop.

The USOPC brought in $10 million in Paris activations, plus another $5.3 million in ecommerce revenue during the Games.

Part of that was due to the unique approach to Team USA House, which opened to the public for the first time as part of a deal with hospitality provider On Location. Fans who bought tickets to the house could see competing athletes take the stage for Q&A segments, mingle with alumni athletes and eat and drink as they watched the Team USA events broadcast on large screens around the hall.

Hirshland said the decision to open a space that in past Games had been reserved for athletes and their families, and served as a B2B asset, was a long-term investment in building the fandom of Team USA.

“It became a rallying destination and environment for Team USA that brought all of these people together in a way that said, ‘This is my thing. I’m part of this,’ and that was really important,” she said.

It also served as a hot spot for storytelling, with medalists making their way through media on-site as part of Managing Victory. The USOPC served as a connector between the NGBs, IOC, media rights holder NBC and athletes to tell the stories of the Games.

The USOPC had the infrastructure in place to capitalize on opportunities wherever they came, expected or not. USA Rugby’s Ilona Maher entered the Games with a following from sharing a message of body positivity and strength for women, and she became a breakout star after helping lead the U.S. to a bronze medal. She went on to star on “Dancing with the Stars,” launch her own podcast and appear in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

“The broad public didn’t know she was coming,” Hirshland said. “We didn’t know that that was going to be coupled with a medal. And so it isn’t about a complete pivot as much as it is when you see something, having the system ready to say, ‘Let’s put a trampoline under her feet so that she can bounce higher.’”


Sarah Hirshland, USOPC CEO
Hirshland is looking ahead to a seismic decade for Team USA, including hosting Games in Los Angeles in 2028 and Salt Lake City in 2034. Marc Andrew Stephens

The Paris Games didn’t just boost U.S. stars. They provided rocket fuel to Hirshland’s focus on generating revenue through philanthropy.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Foundation raised nearly $85 million last year, breaking its previous record by more than $25 million and increasing its number of unique donors by 46%.

Hirshland said it expects to hit its renewal rate of 87%, and its initial target of $70 million for the year has increased to $100 million. She was bullish enough to ask the USOPC board, at its Q1 meeting in April, to increase its revenue projection by 8% so she could spend on immediate projects to help Team USA prepare for Milan Cortina next year.

“We’ve been frankly overwhelmed with the success coming out of Paris,” she said. “[The donors] had an extraordinary time. Our renewal rates are insanely high, and they’re all telling their friends, ‘You’ve got to do this and come with us to L.A.’ and, to some degree, even to Milan Cortina, because it isn’t just about getting tickets and going to the event. It’s the curation of the community that we’ve done that people want to be part of it and they want to do it with their friends.”

A large part of the fundraising success came in a record $100 million gift from hedge fund CEO Ross Stevens in March, one that Hirshland and USOPF have been developing for years. The donation will function as an endowment, funding athletes decades after they’ve competed in the Games.

“She’s built confidence in our organization, so now a donor would be willing to give $100 million to our organization,” said Harris. “She is now going on there and giving them the confidence that this is now an organization that you can trust.”

The revenue from the foundation is part of a long-term plan that Hirshland has balanced with capitalizing on the momentum of the Games.

Part of that has meant working to preserve the collegiate sports system, which serves as a pipeline for Team USA athletes with around 75% of the Summer Olympics athletes competing in college.

Hirshland has developed the USOPC’s connections there and is working to lobby Congress to preserve the broad-based sport, with that pipeline threatened by a changing collegiate sports economic model. The House settlement, set to go into effect Tuesday, stands to funnel more money into football and men’s basketball programs, with much of the movement fearing cuts to Olympic sports.

Harris, who was chief operating officer at Arizona State before he came to the movement, said building support for colleges to maintain that pipeline has been a priority from Hirshland down through the USOPC.

“This role has to be a lead-by-influence role. It won’t ever be a lead-by-authority role because we don’t have enough authority to accomplish what we need to accomplish on our own,” Hirshland said. “As I mature in this role, I recognize that I can’t be shy about being bold in the aspiration of our sport industry, as a whole, working better together for the good of sport.”


Hirshland is already focused on the next decade. Two days before the opening ceremony in Paris, the IOC voted to award the 2034 Games to Salt Lake City.

It was the culmination of years of work and anticipation. After hosting in 2002, the city and state of Utah had hoped for more than a decade to bring the Games back. Those ambitions were first delayed by the USOPC prioritizing winning the rights to host a Summer Games, and then further delayed when Los Angeles’ bid for 2024 turned into a 2028 Games after the dual award with Paris.

“There was a lot of pent-up energy in Utah that kept being sort of told, ‘Sit tight,’” Hirshland said. “When I look back on the whole process, that was the hardest part, getting the Utah community to continue to put the support behind a bid that has to happen for 2034.”

Bringing the Games to Salt Lake City has meant more long-term planning for Hirshland, who is laying the groundwork for a commercial entity to sell those Games and then live on for the USOPC after the flame goes out in 2034.

It’s the exact kind of eyes-ahead approach she has maintained as she works on parallel paths for the Milan Cortina Games next year, LA28 and its extraordinary preparation just three years away and the future of the movement ahead.

This past year, though, was one to celebrate, both for Hirshland and her organization. “It was huge and Paris was, I think in a lot of ways, overwhelming to our team, to me, personally, in the sort of breadth and magnitude of what it ended up representing,” Hirshland said. “Because everybody engaged and re-engaged, and we hadn’t seen that really since 2016 in a major, major way.

“It was a huge waterfall of goodness.”

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