Sonny Vaccaro
Impact Award

Previous Recipients:
2024: National College Players Association (NCPA) & College Football Players Association (CFBPA)
2023: Dr. Dan Rascher and Andy Schwarz
2022: Dr. Ellen Starowsky
2019: Jeremy Bloome
2018: Dr. Harry Edwards
2017: Sonny Vaccaro

This award honors individuals who have made a “positive impact” on college sport by advocating or defending college athletes’ fundamental civil and human rights.  The recipients of this award have chosen to take the same path as Mr. Vaccaro and question the NCAA and the big-time college-sport hegemony.

In 2007, Sonny Vaccaro ended his decades-long career as a sport marketing executive with Nike, Adidas, and Reebok.  During his career, Mr. Vaccaro helped create a “grass-roots” youth basketball system that was and remains at the epicenter of the multi-billion-dollar college sport industry.  Since that time, Mr. Vaccaro’s impact on college sport has changed from an involvement with high school, college and professional coaches and players to a personal quest to fundamentally change college sport.  His relentless championing of the rights of high school and college athletes has taken the form of his speaking on college campuses across the country, granting interviews and providing context for countless journalists, historians, documentary filmmakers, congressional staffers, college sport reformers, and convincing several lawyers to file lawsuits against the NCAA.  In short, Mr. Vaccaro has had an unmistakable impact on college sport and the cause of college athletes’ rights and empowerment.  He continues to speak truth to power and hold those who deny college athletes their fundamental rights up for public scrutiny.

Emerging Scholar Award

Previous Recipients:
2024: Dr. Molly Harry, University of Arkansas
2023: Dr. Ajhanai (AJ) Keaton, University of Louisville

The College Sport Research Institute (CSRI) aims to annually recognize a faculty member and/or researcher conducting meaningful scholarship in the area of college sport research as the recipient of the CSRI Emerging Scholar award. Such designation indicates the awarded individual is on the cutting edge of research in college sport/collegiate athletes. This award is designed to recognize faculty in the beginning stages of their career and contribute to their establishment as utmost scholars in the field of college sport research. Nominations are accepted prior to the annual CSRI Conference on College Sport and the recipient is recognized and presented with an award during the conference. Parameters for nominations are listed below:

Nominees should:

  • Have been in a full-time faculty position in academia for less than six years.

  • Have published no less than five manuscripts pertaining explicitly to collegiate athletics in reputable peer-reviewed journals.

  • Have published at least one article in the Journal of Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics.

Nominations are to include a written statement justifying the significance and impact of the research conducted by the nominee. Individuals are welcome to nominate themselves. Upon receipt of nominations, a committee consisting of previous emerging scholar recipients and CSRI staff will meet to determine the individual to be awarded at the CSRI Conference on College Sport.

*All nominations must be submitted online using the nomination form found on this webpage. Please direct any questions regarding the Sonny Vaccaro Impact or Emerging Scholar Award to Chris Corr, contact information below.

Chris Corr
Executive Director, CSRI
Senior Lecturer, Clemson University
ctcorr@clemson.edu
(828) 803-9233