Sports superstar: New faculty member promotes WSU in home country and beyond

L-and-C-mugs-80PULLMAN, Wash. – At WSU, there’s “Wave the flag.” In Slovenia, it’s more like “Wave the jersey.”

A photo of two Washington State University College of Education professors holding a Slovenia basketball jersey has gone viral in that country, hitting major sports websites and social media. It has opened opportunities to promote WSU to the world.

C-and-L-on-Twitter-300Cathryn Claussen is an award-winning professor and director of the sport management program.

New faculty member Simon Ličen is from Slovenia. And within the sports world, he’s a bit of a rock star – in a nerdy way. Like Slovenia’s version of ESPN’s John Clayton.

And while Slovenia is only the land size of New Jersey and population size of New Mexico, that doesn’t diminish the work Ličen did within his native country’s sports landscape, specifically basketball.

International perspective

He collaborated with the national basketball federation for years, serving, among other things, on the technical committee for Slovenian basketball officials. He wrote manuals for junior referees and led the localization of sophisticated statistical software.

He helped organize new national basketball championships at the junior level and was on the organizing team of the Under-20 European Basketball Championship for Men, which was jointly hosted in 2007 by Slovenia and Italy.

He served as media and communications director of a women’s tennis tour event held in Slovenia and was part of the organizing team of the Ljubljana Marathon.

“In addition to his expertise in sport media and communication, he brings an international perspective on sport that will be of great value to our students and faculty,” Claussen said.

Basketball a new passion

She said she hopes the college explores study abroad opportunities for its students to visit Slovenia and learn about how the sport industry is managed there.

“I visited Slovenia in 2006 when I attended a sport law conference in Ljubljana, and I found the country beautiful and the people warm and welcoming,” she said.

Much has changed over the past century for this little country. In June 1991, it gained its independence from Yugoslavia. While gymnastics and skiing used to be the top sports, basketball has emerged as a new passion.

September marked the 38th EuroBasket championship organized by FIBA (international basketball federation) Europe. Not only was it the first time Slovenia hosted, but it was the largest sporting event the country had ever hosted.

“For a country with a population of 2 million, this is quite a big deal there,” Ličen said.

Ambassador for WSU

Amid such basketball mania, it’s no surprise Ličen’s photo garnered so much attention.

“I think people in Slovenia are happy to have me acting as an informal ambassador,” he said.

That hasn’t just meant a single photo going viral. It has included interviews with the country’s equivalent of the Wall Street Journal and with Slovenian public radio. Ličen is using those opportunities to talk about WSU, the college and his research.

C-and-L-w-No-9-jersey-600For example, he talked to the Slovenian Finance Journal about research he is conducting at WSU regarding people’s perception of the EuroBasket event in Slovenia.

“I like making it a point of promoting the university,” he said. “In particular, I like promoting the college and its online courses. This is a way to jumpstart the discussions.”

Equalizing opportunities for genders

There’s also a little method to his madness with the jersey he and Claussen are holding, specifically the fact that it displays the number 9. Ličen chose to print that on the jersey in order to have the opportunity to bring up Title IX in the Slovenian media, even if just in passing.

“In these interviews, I can emphasize that the United States is an athletic superpower and also an economic superpower, but it still has implemented laws mandating equal educational and athletic opportunities to both genders,” Ličen said.

“In terms of athletics opportunities and funding, girls and women trail when compared to their male counterparts,” he said. “So this is sort of a mini guerilla campaign to promote social justice and equal opportunities across the globe, Slovenia in particular.”