PRACTICE IN THE FIELD: BEYOND THE PUBLICATION. Research and Advocacy in Disability Sport and Sport and Human Rights: The Journey Along the Road to Scholar-Advocacy

Mary A. Hums and Eli A. Wolff

One of the true joys of working in a sport or entertainment management program is the interdisciplinary nature of our fields. As professors, we have a choice to pursue interests in related fields such as sociology, psychology, marketing, management, history, political science, or anthropology. We may also define ourselves as theoretical researchers, practitioner-oriented consultants, administrators, and/ or teachers. Working in academia, we will likely take on a number of these roles at different points or our professional lives. While we value these roles, the authors of this article decided early in our careers that among these roles, above all, we wanted to define ourselves as scholar advocates. Scholar advocates are those individuals who primarily want to apply their training and expertise to advocacy for the rights of those individuals and/or groups that might lack the power to achieve the objectives that other individuals and/or groups take for granted.