James Thoma is a professor of sport management and chairman of the Department of Physical Education, Health, Sports Medicine, and Sport Management at Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio. He has worked internationally in sport as an administrator, athletics/track-and-field coach, and teacher in Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Saudi Arabia. He was national teams coordinator for The Athletics Congress/USA and worked as an administrator with the 1980 United States Olympic track-and-field team. His duties have included coaching the Brunei national team at the 1985 Southeast Asian Games in Bangkok and at the 1986 Asian Athletics Championships in Jakarta. He has held a faculty position at the United States Sports Academy after serving as a secondary school mathematics teacher and coaching athletics at The Ohio State University and Otterbein College, Ohio. He is a former secretary of the North American Society for Sport Management and currently serves on its international committee.