Home Academy News Academy Faculty Member, Alumnus Dr. Dave Shrock Teaching Sport Marketing in the UAE

Academy Faculty Member, Alumnus Dr. Dave Shrock Teaching Sport Marketing in the UAE

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Academy Faculty Member, Alumnus Dr. Dave Shrock Teaching Sport Marketing in the UAE
Dr. Dave Shrock, seated right, teaches for the United States Sports Academy in the United Arab Emirates. Photo by UAE Coordinator Ajayaraj Narayana Menon

Nationally acclaimed track and field coach and long-time health and physical fitness professor Dr. Dave Shrock is kicking off this academic year’s international sports education programs for the United States Sports Academy by teaching a sports marketing course to soccer administrators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Shrock – an Academy alumnus and National Faculty member – is teaching during September as part of the Academy’s cooperative effort to train soccer administrators through a Football Club Operators License Program with the United Arab Emirates Football Association (UAEFA).

The Academy and UAEFA collaborated to develop the Football Association Academy for Sports Management (FAASM), known as the Football Association Academy (FAA). This effort includes soccer certification programs that offer professional preparation and training designed to meet the needs of coaches, athletes, administrators and operatives at all levels in the UAE club system. The FAA began offering classes in February 2016.

Dr. Dave Shrock

The Academy provides faculty and instruction for the program, which includes subjects such as sports administration, sport marketing, sports media, and facility and event management. Each subject has three levels of instruction through which successful students receive in succession a “C”, “B” and “A” level license.

Shrock is teaching CEM 344, a level “C” sport marketing course in the UAE.

“We are giving these students a good foundation for sport marketing so they can they can put together the pieces of the puzzle that make up a successful sport enterprise,” Shrock said. “They have great facilities, players, coaches and staff. We are here to teach them how to increase visibility, increase spectators and market their programs on social media and the web.

“The Academy is providing these students with a fantastic opportunity to have someone from the outside, with a different perspective, come in and give them new information that they can apply in their region.

“It is always a breath of fresh air to get a different perspective. Our role is to give them good content and show them how to apply it to their specific needs.”

Shrock – a professor of health and physical education and track and field coach at Modesto Junior College in Calif. – this summer was elected chair of the USA Track and Field (USATF) National Associations Committee at the group’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. He was also awarded the McGill Legacy Coaching Award, given annually by the USATF Coaching Education Committee.

Shrock has served several leadership roles for USATF over the last four decades and coached internationally for the organization, serving as an assistant coach at the 2012 World Indoor Championships in Istanbul and the PanAm Cross Country Championships in Venezuela in 2016.

He has more than 40 years of track and field coaching experience, including 20 years as a college coach. He said soccer and track and field often face similar challenges in marketing.

“In track and field, it is sometimes a challenge to increase awareness of the sport and to attract large crowds to events,” Shrock said. “In that sense, marketing track and field and soccer is similar in my mind. I’m looking forward to the challenge, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the UAE students bring to the table.

“I enjoy teaching for the Academy overseas because of the great diversity of the students and the wealth of experience and knowledge they bring to the table,” Shrock said. “These students are often experts in their fields, and we are there to give them our information so they can apply it to their reality.”

A resident of Modesto, Calif., Shrock earned a bachelor’s degree in history and a master’s degree in kinesiology from San Jose State University. He earned his Doctor of Education degree in Sports Management from the Academy in 2009.  He was recently named the Academy’s Alumnus of the Year for 2017.

As a member of the National Faculty, a group of highly qualified faculty who teach in the Academy’s international education programs, Shrock has taught sport marketing and leadership for the Academy’s international sport education programs in Bahrain and Thailand.

Shrock serves in numerous USA Track & Field leadership roles including president of the nation’s largest association, the Pacific Association; as USATF Coaching Committee chair; and as vice chair on the USATF National Association’s Executive Committee. He has educated more than 1,000 coaches throughout the country and directs track and field schools and clinics. His association work includes oversight of several national championships and hosting Olympic trials. His efforts have included coaching schools for youth, high school, college and elite levels.

Shrock began his college coaching career in 1976 at the College of San Mateo in his home town of San Mateo, Calif., before coaching cross country and assisting with track and field at Stanford and San José State universities. He coached Modesto Junior College to two Northern California Community College Championships and three runner-up finishes in track and field. He has been named a coach of the year 10 times and coached 64 junior college All-Americans.

The United States Sports Academy is an independent, non-profit, accredited, special mission sports university created to serve the nation and world with programs in instruction, research and service. The role of the Academy is to prepare men and women for careers in the profession of sports.

The Academy is based in Daphne, Ala. For more information, call (251) 626-3303 or visit www.ussa.edu.

By Eric Mann

Eric Mann is the communications assistant at the United States Sports Academy. 

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