The following individuals are candidates for the 2024-2025 SRLA Board of Directors:
Candidate for President-Elect: Justin Lovich
Justin Lovich, PhD is currently Assistant Chair and Associate Professor of Recreation and Sport Management at Coastal Carolina University, where he serves as the Director of the Sport Management Graduate Program. . He is running for the position of President-Elect of the Sport and Recreation Law Association (SRLA).
Justin was previously an assistant professor of Sport Management at SUNY Cortland. He earned a J.D. from Duquesne University School of Law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 2006. After working as a judicial law clerk and a civil litigation attorney, he returned to academia and received a Ph.D. in Sport Management from Florida State University.
As a member of SRLA for more than ten years, I have served the organization in a variety of roles. In 2012-13, I was elected to serve as the Student Representative on the Board of Directors. In 2014, I received the Bernard Patrick Maloy Graduate Student Research Award. I have also been grateful to serve as a member of the Honors and Awards Committee; as a judge in the Graduate Student Case Study Competition; as an abstract reviewer for the conference; and as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sport. For the past two years, I have served on the Board of Directors as the association’s Financial Officer.
SRLA plays a vital and invaluable role in the academic disciplines of recreation and sport management. Additionally, the association continues to play a crucial role in the professional development of many in our field—facilitating relationships, creating professional opportunities, and sparking scholarly inquiry and collaboration. It has been an honor to serve this organization that has been so influential in my own personal and professional growth. I am extremely proud of the work of the board these past few years, regaining financial stability following the COVID pandemic and prioritizing the value of membership moving forward. I would be humbled and grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve the association, and to pay forward the benefits of membership through work and stewardship befitting this organization.
Candidate for President-Elect: Brian Menaker
Brian E. Menaker, PhD is currently an Associate Professor, Master’s Program Graduate Coordinator, and Interim Associate Department Chair at Texas A&M University – Kingsville where he teaches sport management courses in the Department of Health and Kinesiology. He is running for the position of President-Elect for the Board of Directors of the Sport and Recreation Law Association (SRLA).
Dr. Menaker received his Ph.D. Health and Human Performance with a concentration in Sport Management from the University of Florida in 2011. His professional experience includes work in intercollegiate athletics in facility management, coaching cross country and track and field at the NCAA Division III and club levels in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and running event management experience.
Dr. Menaker first attended the SRLA conference in 2009 in San Antonio and has attended the conference yearly since 2014. SRLA has been his primary academic professional development home for his academic career and he is excited at the prospect of being able to continue to serve on the board and help lead this organization. Additionally, he has served as an ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Legal Aspects of Sports and abstract reviewer for the annual conference. His primary qualifications to serve as president-elect of this organization stem from his current role as the Member-at-Large for Honors and Awards for the past two years. In this role he serves as the liaison between the SRLA Board and the Honor and Awards committee. Over his four years of service to the Honors and Awards Committee, including the past two years chairing this committee, he has been honored to lead the effort to recognize the members who have served this organization and are deserving of the various awards the organization bestows, while being able to read and recognize the research awards submissions by student members. He also concurrently served as a member of the SRLA Marketing Committee in the 2021-2022 board cycle helping with the effort to design and initiate the Undergraduate Research Competition.
Dr. Menaker hopes to further the SRLA mission as President-Elect, and promote the organization as a collegial and unique professional environment for those dedicated to the study and teaching of legal aspects of sport and recreation. This includes maintaining the support and input from past-presidents and the membership at-large, engaging in outreach to students to help increase the pool of future leaders and scholars in sport and recreation law, and increasing the value of a SRLA membership for our current and prospective members.
Candidate for Member-at-Large (Honors and Awards)- Rachel Silverman
Rachel is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator for the Sport Management Program in the Kinesiology and Sport Sciences Department at the University of Nebraska Kearney. She teaches courses in sport law, economics, marketing, and sociology, as well as recreation programming. She is running for the position of Member-at-Large (Honors and Awards) of the Sport and Recreation Law Association.
Rachel’s PhD in Sport Management is from Troy University (dissertation defense Jan. 31st, graduation March 2024). Her research agenda focuses on women in sports, including sociological, legal, and ethical aspects of sports. She published an article about Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment in women’s wrestling in The Journal of NCAA Compliance. She has also contributed two book chapters to Gil Fried’s Safe at First: The Essential Risk Management Guide for Sport Administrators. She has written many case summaries for Holt Hackney’s Sport Litigation Alert.
She is a previous Adjunct Faculty Member at Fullerton College as part of the Physical Education department. She assisted in designing the yoga teacher training program at Fullerton College and obtaining approval from Yoga Alliance. She has her M.A. in Kinesiology and Sport Management from the University of South Dakota. Her bachelor’s degree is from Brandeis University in Studio Art, Art History, and Journalism.
Rachel served as the Student Representative on the SRLA board for the past two years. She coordinated the graduate case study cup and student social and provided input from the student perspective on the board. Rachel was able to increase the number of teams in the case study cup each year she was on the board. She has been a member of SRLA since 2022 and presented at the conference each year. In 2022, she also received the Mary Myers SRLA Student Travel Award. She would love to continue her service to the SRLA board coordinating the Honors and Awards.
Candidate for Treasurer – Robert Romano
It is with great enthusiasm that I submit this as my declaration of candidacy for the 2024 Financial Officer of the Sport and Recreation Law Association. My candidacy is derived from my gratitude to the sport legal profession, an area I have been fortunate to enjoy for the last 15 years. I am enthusiastic about the challenge ahead and am eager to serve.
As for my background, I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Division of Sport Management at St. John’s University. After attending Springfield College, where I was a member of the football team, I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, LA, Master’s in Sports Management from Columbia University, New York, NY, and my LL.M. in International and Comparative Sports Law from Instituto Superior de Derecho y Economia (ISDE)/St. John’s University, Madrid, Spain/ Queens, NY.
Prior to St. John’s, I was an Associate Professor and Chair of the Eckelkamp College of Global Business and Professional Studies at Fontbonne University in St. Louis, MO, where I also served as Director of both the Sports Management Program and the Graduate Studies Program. In addition, I have also served as a Visiting Professor at both Instituto de Empresa (IE Business School) and Instituto Superior de Derecho y Economia (ISDE), and as an adjunct professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law (Philadelphia, PA), and Quinnipiac University School of Law (Hamden, CT).
Outside of academia, I serve as a both a judicial arbitrator for the State of Connecticut and an attorney, holding a license in both state and federal court, wherein my legal practice focuses on sport law and sport and entertainment related issues. As an experienced contract attorney, I have negotiated employment contracts, public appearance, endorsement and sponsorship agreements for U.S. and international coaches, professional athletes, entertainers, broadcasters, and front office personnel. My sport litigation experience stems from representing world-class athletes, student-athletes, and sports agents before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, the Basketball Arbitration Tribunal, and other alternative dispute resolution boards and committees. I have also published over 100 articles in the area of sport and sport law, while also making regular guest appearances to discuss such issues on the Stan Simpson Show, WFAN, ESPN Radio, FOX Sports Radio, along with a host of other local and national radio stations. Thank you for your consideration.