Ken Shropshire: Sports, Race, and Social Impact

 Episode Summary Ken Shropshire is the master of making lemonade when life hands you lemons. Told by his coach that he would never make it as a professional athlete, Ken took what he knew and became a sports attorney and then parlayed that knowledge into a thirty-year career at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His insight to the practical sociology of sports spans the Olympics, college, and professional sports worlds. Today he is an author and consultant in sports and he shares his epic journey with The Sydcast.     Syd Finkelstein Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Masters degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.    Ken Shropshire Kenneth L. Shropshire joined Arizona State University after having served for more than 30 years as the David W. Hauck Professor at the Wharton School in the department of legal studies and business ethics at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as the director of the Wharton Sports Business Initiative and carries the title Wharton Professor Emeritus.  Ken is the first Adidas Distinguished Professor of Global Sport and the founding CEO of the Global Sport Institute, with additional appointments in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, and the African and African American Studies program in the School of Social Transformation. Professor Shropshire's research centers on a wide range of sports-related issues, including sports business, sports business law, sports and social impact, race and the law, negotiations, franchise relocation, antitrust issues, contracts, negotiation and dispute resolution, and the broader sports industry. His research has been published in a dozen books and law journals, including Stanford Law and Policy Review, American Business Law Journal, Hastings Law Journal, Marquette Sports Law Journal, Seton Hall Journal of Sports Law, Denver University Law Review, and University of Colorado Law Review. Insights from this episode:Details on Ken’s work on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the reasons why he still calls it the job of a lifetime.  Benefits of focusing on the task at hand and “working smart, not long” to accomplish your goals.How to be successful in the presence of obstacles by using what you have learned and applying that experience to a new path to success.  Strategies being employed to combat injuries in football and create diverse representation in coaching. Details on how sports continue to evolve, how they remain the same, and what we can learn about ourselves through sports. Quotes from the show:On negotiation strategy: “In the negotiation, you throw something really far out there, that you won’t get, so you can try to get the fallback.” – Ken ShropshireOn why players were not compensated in early sports clubs: “There is a sector of society that is able to participate in sport, for the glory of sport alone, without compensation, and these are rich people.” – Ken Shropshire“There was a time when inheritance was considered the honorable way to have your wealth and not to work for it.” – Syd FinkelsteinOn whether college athletes should be compensated monetarily: “The primary question should be are we working to give them an opportunity to earn a meaningful degree.” – Ken Shropshire“As us failed athletes realize, part of the reason we weren’t successful [even] if we had the physical tools, we were not focused enough on having that success.” – Ken ShropshireOn accepting your limitations and pursuing new options: “A journey would dictate that you might try something else especially if you don’t have the characteristics to be successful.” – Ken Shropshire“The key in all of this is: the journey is okay, making mistakes along the way is okay, if you get it right the first time then you are the exception, and everybody is not an entrepreneur.” – Ken ShropshireOn modern football’s similarities to early boxing: “We used to see the latest immigrant group was the most successful group in that sport because it was a path out.” – Ken ShropshireOn people from lower socio-economic backgrounds: “People that have fewer advantages are the ones that are going into the places where there is a lot of danger in those jobs.” – Syd Finkelstein“Baseball has really become suburbanized in terms of where you get instruction and somehow football has survived in high schools of America.” – Ken ShropshireOn diversity hiring: “It’s actually the smart thing to do, it’s not just the good thing … it’s going to make you more successful.” – Syd Finkelstein Stay Connected:   Syd Finkelstein Website: http://thesydcast.com LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein Twitter: @sydfinkelstein Facebook: The Sydcast Instagram: The Sydcast   Ken Shropshire Website: kennethshropshire.com LinkedIn: Ken Shropshire Twitter: @kenshropshire Subscribe to our podcast + download each episode on Stitcher, iTunes, and Spotify.  This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)