The late John Wooden recognized a close tie between coaching and teaching.
“The coach is, first of all, a teacher,” Wooden opined near the end of his legendary basketball coaching career at UCLA..
His words and accomplishments intrigued Dr. Erin Powers, a founding member of the School of Education and Information Studies’ Transformative Coaching and Leadership (TCL) program.
“I was really curious about particular ways that coaches engage and support student-athletes,” Powers says.
Exploring issues in contemporary athletics, Powers found parallels between problems in classroom settings — discoveries that eventually inspired her doctoral studies in the field of Education.
“I started to think about those environments and compare them to schools where students have been marginalized or dehumanized. And I wondered if a particular theory – culturally relevant pedagogy -might be applicable in athletic settings the way that it is in teaching spaces.”
As the Director of Academic Support for the TCL program, Powers develops close relationships with each and every student, mentoring them through their activities, both inside and outside the classroom.
“In a lot of ways, the students in TCL have a lot in common with anyone who’s holding down a full-time job and taking classes or learning in addition to their other responsibilities,” Powers explains.
Between coaching gigs, part-time work, internships, parenting, and, for some students, commitments to UCLA’s NCAA sports teams as athletes, TCL students generally balance a heavy load.
“They have big hearts,” Powers adds. “And they’re able to keep what’s most important in mind about life.”
Powers co-instructs the TCL program’s Leadership and Management of Athletics Departments course along with Dr. Christina Munger-Rivera, UCLA Athletics’ Deputy Athletics Director and
Chief Administrative Officer.
Melding Powers’ two-plus decades of teaching expertise with Munger-Rivera’s practical involvement with NCAA governance, the pair push students to address some of the very same contemporary issues she examined while earning her doctorate.
Her students dive into case studies relevant to modern athletics department administrators, analyzing topics related to gender equity, athlete welfare, and Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) policies.
Working in small groups, students are often paired with seasoned UCLA Athletics staff members who have direct experience tackling those issues.
“They’ll help them work through the problem, give them feedback and give them some direction,” Powers says. “Our goal is for them to think about where they might see themselves in an athletics department in the future and also think about which various leadership theories they might exemplify in their work and which they might aspire to.”
Some of her past students’ work has led to palpable change at UCLA.
One class cohort directed attention to equitable nutrition distribution in the athletic department, or the lack thereof.
“Some student-athletes didn’t have enough access to food and weren’t getting proper nutrition,” Powers explains.
A small group in the class conducted research and presented its findings to UCLA Athletics officials, inspiring the creation of a nutrition center on campus for on-the-go athletes.
“One of the things that we do well in the Department of Education is recognize that teaching in and of itself is a life skill,” adds Powers, who serves as Director for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Project. “There’s a whole body of knowledge around it.”
“Teaching is something that can be learned, that can be practiced, that can be honed. And I would argue that it’s something that requires lifelong continuous improvement, because it’s so complex, and it’s always changing. Because students are always changing.”
A Central California native, Powers studied English at UC Santa Barbara where she earned her English Language Arts Teaching Credential and Master of Education. Her Ed.D focused on teaching in athletics contexts. She is a National Board Certified Teacher in Early Adolescence English Language Arts. She has taught multiple UCLA Extension courses and trained UCLA Geffen School of Medicine faculty as well as K-12 educators.
Learn more about UCLA’s Transformative Coaching and Leadership Master of Education program.
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