Guest Speaker - Coach Bill Popp

Guest Speaker: Bill Popp

Position or Title: Athletic Director

Organization: Reinhart University

Speaker’s Main Points:

-          Background: From a young age Coach Bill Popp was always interested in sports and more specifically baseball. After offering to take up a coaching role in the summer for a Cobb County Baseball team, Popp was then employed as Head Coach of Oglethorpe. Finally after his 12years at Oglethorpe, Popp then took the Head Coach’s job at Reinhardt University, in relation to a job as Athletic Director.

-          Present Time: Coach Bill Popp is full-time Athletic Director of Reinhardt University.

-          Qualifications: B.S in Sports Management.

-          Changes at Reinhardt: Last 6-7 years Reinhardt has seen improvements to walkways and disability accesses inside and outside of the main gym. Softball and Baseball had fields made equip with floodlights. An operations manager was put in place and finally a yearly golf tournament was created for fundraising.

-          Football 2013: Popp also spoke about the new football team arriving at Reinhardt.

Questions for Speaker:

-          What was it like coaching college athletes? In addition, what was it like coaching athletes that are the same age as you?

-          How do you deicide and evaluate who gets the most scholarship money? Or is it divided equally?

-          Will there be a Graduate Assistantship Program available soon? If so, when?

Sport Leadership Information Learned from this speaker:

The importance of Leadership and Co-operation. I learnt that Leadership is key iwhen running a team and that deadlines must be set, in order to be met. Without co-operation in a team and trust, these deadlines will not be met on time. However with co-operation they can be met, for example all the coaches at Reinhardt offer help and advice to each other.

Jack Coulton (Sports Administration)