#158: Big Ten Sr. VP of Sport Administration Becky Pany: Arbitrator of fairness

Sport and the Growing Good

Becky Pany is the Senior Vice President of Sport Administration at the Big Ten Conference. She works closely with campus and conference partners to ensure that the conference offers a fair and robust sports experience.

1. Back injury that allowed Becky to serve as a student coach and ultimately an internship and role in the athletic department at IU.

2. Being a utility player. Learning from a variety of roles.

3. The work of a campus-level sport administrator. A “bridge” between the program and the department (and vice-versa). Note: this is a critical and increasingly challenging role in the era of resource reallocation in college athletics.

4. Roles as conference VP of sport administration. “Arbitrator of fairness.”

5. The dynamics of working with coaches. Competitors and collaborators. Annual business meeting for each set of coaches. “They come together and work through all operational aspects related to their sports.” Talking through and standardizing championship manuals.

6. How the governance process plays out for policy and rules changes. Coaches provide recommendations and then the ideas move through the chain of governance.

7. Collaborating on complex matters like scheduling and team travel amid conference expansion. Example: how does a school’s academic calendar shape their scheduling and travel possibilities?

8. Technologies that assist with putting schedules together.

9. Routines with the SWAs on each campus.

10. Values that guide her work. Fairness.

11. Continuing to learn through relationships. Listening.