Who We Are

There are already hundreds of institutions focused on sports themselves. This is about something very different. It’s about the people who play and coach sports. Sports are a defining part of our culture. Sports provide structure to the lives of tens of millions of youth and their families. By enriching the character and lives of athletes and coaches, we can make a massive, positive impact on the character of our society. OUR MISSION The Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation cultivates the character development, leadership skills, and long-term welfare of athletes and coaches. With interdisciplinary relationships across campus, CSLi unites academic and athletic units in a mission to cultivate the coaches and athletes of our society.

What We’re Fundraising For

Donate to our Online Leadership Course The Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation has created a nine-session online team leadership certification for high school athletes. We take concepts that Daron K. Roberts teaches UT student-athletes in Gameplan for Winning at Life and break them down into highly engaging videos, activities, and discussions. Each session contains a 5-15 minute introduction video, self-guided activities, quizzes, and bonus online materials. In order to continue offering this high-level leadership certification, we need to cover our production, development, and platform costs. Thank you for your support! Sponsor Captains Academy The 16 school districts surrounding Austin serve more than 288,000 high school students. Due to a lack of resources, the vast majority of those young people will never experience high-quality leadership training. Through our five previous sessions at the University of Texas, we have been able to reach 500 captains. WE MUST DO MORE. CSLi wants to bring our leadership training to 10,000 Texas high school athletes in the next three years. WE NEED YOUR HELP. This sponsorship is a unique opportunity to leverage impact in the Austin community. LET’S WORK TOGETHER. A Captains Academy sponsorship creates a mutually beneficial partnership between you and CSLi. Through a monetary or in-kind donation, you can help CSLi impact the lives of thousands of young people and change the conversation around sports leadership.

Your Impact

Help us keep Captains Academy going! Captains Academy was created in 2015. It began as a joint effort between the Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation (CSLi) and the Austin Independent School District (AISD). Available to all high school team-sport captains in AISD, the Academy has developed 500 student-athletes over the past four years, and in that time, CSLi has honed in on the most impactful topics for students 14 to 18 years olds. How it Works The student-athletes engage in a mixture of critical thought-based self-inquiry and energetic activities designed to engage and reinforce the concepts. Each group is paired with a facilitator who has completed three hours of training on the leadership concepts. The training is comprised of a mixture of critical thought-based self-inquiry and energetic activities designed to engage and reinforce the concepts. This is a fun and challenging experience. For every minute of discussion, there are two minutes of activity. The Academy is a leadership training program designed to equip the captains of boys and girls sports teams with critical skills in mindfulness, self-awareness, vulnerability, empathy, goal-setting, mindset, and personal branding. The concepts transcend sport and humanize the experience of athletes, and our unique modules identify and address the lessons athletes need to learn to become effective leaders and more importantly, positive change agents. From the endorsement of former UT Presidents Bill Powers and Greg Fenves, to the active participation of CSLi Founding Director Daron K. Roberts, this training involves stakeholders at every level of the process. At a ratio of six students to one facilitator, the level of individualized instruction is unparalleled. All facilitators go through in-depth training to offer the best possible experience. The Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation is an organization dedicated to service. Fulfilling our mission hinges on the dollars that come from supporters like yourselves. In-person programming is not cheap. We need to pay for space on campus, materials, meals, parking passes, and more. Every academy comes at no cost to the school district, and we would like to keep it that way! Your dollars will go directly toward providing Austin high school athletes the leadership skills they need to thrive in college and beyond. These are the leaders of tomorrow!