LEAD1 ASSOCIATION Salutes Rocky Harris, Martin Jamond, Ashwin Puri, and Danny White for Selection as "40 Under 40" by SportsBusiness Journal!

Just as all the children of Lake Woebegone are above average, so are all those working for LEAD1 Association members superior!

SportsBusiness Journal has furthered this by selecting Rocky Harris of Arizona State University, Martin Jarmond of Ohio State University, Ashwin Puri of the University of California-Berkeley, and Danny White of the University of Central Florida as "Forty Under 40 Class of 2017."

A great publication, the SportsBusiness Journal writes that, "All 40 executives will be featured in the April 10 issue of SportsBusiness Journal, where the stories of their career paths and successes will be shared. They also will be honored at our annual Forty Under 40 gala, April 20, at Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, Calif. That event comes at the conclusion of our annual CAA World Congress of Sports, April 19-20."

It is because of the great work by Harris, Jarmond, Puri, White, and others at LEAD1 Association that the member schools continually dominate in global rankings of the best universities.

In the 2016 Center for World University Rankings, the top three were American. Of the top ten, seven were from the United States. Two of the top seven were LEAD1 Association members with Stanford University at the second best university in the world and the University of California, Berkeley coming in at seventh. Much of this is owed to the athletic directors and departments.

The dominance in sports was shown at the Summer Olympics in Rio.

The 121 American medal winners at Rio came from 78 institutions of higher learning, with LEAD1 member schools dominating. The top 15 medal winners were all Lead1 Association members. Stanford led with 27 medals. Cal-Berkeley next had 22. The University of Southern California then had 23 medal winners. Of the LEAD1 schools in the top 50 in the world academically, Texas, UCLA, and were also leading medal winners at Rio.

Now it is Rhodes Scholarships along with the 2016 Center for World University Rankings and medals at Rio this summer being dominated by LEAD1 Association schools.

That is a tribute to the administration at those LEAD1 Association members, especially the athletic directors. Athletes at LEAD1 schools are treated the best ever in the history of college sports. As such, it is hardly surprising that they dominate global competition, both academically and athletically.

The student-athletes at these and other members of the LEAD1 Association have the best educations, athletic training, career and class counseling, coaching in all sports, and access to facilities in the history of higher education.

The benefits are lifetime in nature, ranging from higher earnings for college graduates to athletes forging bonds with teammates that will last forever from being based on shared victories and the challenges they overcame together to reach those goals. Studies show that college scholarship athletes graduate at a higher rate. This is true for all student-athletes, male or female, whether or not they take their playing career from college to Oxford for graduate study under a Rhodes Scholarship, to The Olympics or to "The Show." LEAD1 Association athletic programs develop student-athletes in every way possible as manifested with its mission statement of, "Supporting the athletic directors of America’s leading intercollegiate programs in preparing today’s students to be tomorrow’s leaders."

Oxford University, The Olympics, and major league baseball, football, basketball, and hockey all owe a great deal to the athletic programs assembled and led by athletic directors at LEAD1 Association schools that develop and produce so many scholar-athletes who are also leaders.

LEAD1 is an association representing the 129 athletic directors from the NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools, which are located in 41 states across America as shown in the map below. This is why athletic directors and the athletic departments they create are considered to be the "front porch" of the university, presenting its brand to the world. Obviously this is going well based on the rankings! Essential to the LEAD1 Association mission are influencing how the rules of college sports are enacted and implemented, advocating for the future of college athletics, and providing various services to the members, ranging from professional development to pooled purchasing arrangements. 

For more information, please contact Jonathan Yates, Director of Communications and Public Affairs for LEAD1 Association, at 301-807-2523.