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University of Texas Launches Center for Sports Leadership

President Bill Powers and Founding Director Daron Roberts talking to Texas Standard’s David Brown about the new Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation.";

The University of Texas at Austin has announced a new sports leadership initiative. This at a time of national headline-grabbing stories of violence involving professional athletes and as a Travis County grand jury this week indicted two former Longhorn football players on felony sexual assault charges.

The Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation will work with high school coaches on a training program to help detect and intervene at signs of troubling or violent behavior. The new center is led by former NFL assistant coach and lecturer in UT’s College of Liberal Arts, Daron K. Roberts.

“We aim to use interdisciplinary research, entrepreneurial thinking and strong relationships with outside groups to ensure that young athletes can all become responsible role models,” says Roberts.

The Center will be largely funded largely with revenue from the Longhorn Network for three years. UT will also seek private, nonprofit partnerships to turn the Center into a financially self-sufficient project. 

UT President Bill Powers says the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation "is a program with a stated goal of helping athletes to succeed on and off the field as responsible citizens."

Filipa Rodrigues contributed to this report.

David entered radio journalism thanks to a love of storytelling, an obsession with news, and a desire to keep his hair long and play in rock bands. An inveterate political junkie with a passion for pop culture and the romance of radio, David has reported from bases in Washington, London, Los Angeles, and Boston for Monitor Radio and for NPR, and has anchored in-depth public radio documentaries from India, Brazil, and points across the United States and Europe. He is, perhaps, known most widely for his work as host of public radio's Marketplace. Fulfilling a lifelong dream of moving to Texas full-time in 2005, Brown joined the staff of KUT, launching the award-winning cultural journalism unit "Texas Music Matters."
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