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Nick Starr Discusses Trip to South Africa for the FIFA World Cup
Posted March 17, 2013
Recently, graduating senior and sport management major Nick Starr spoke to Adjunct Professor Sharon Williams' cultures class on comparative race relations (U.S. and South Africa), based on his travel to South Africa during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In a lively 90-minute session, Starr recounted his impressions including observations at the opening match between South Africa and Mexico at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg where he experienced first hand the power of sport to unify a nation.
Starr also shared his memories of meeting sport management students at Tshwane University of Technology, seeing up close the poverty and living conditions of the predominantly black Soweto Township, and realizing how challenged the organizers were in staging this mega sporting event as it was the first time the FIFA World Cup was held on the African continent. During Starr's presentation, students were treated to a slide show of photos of the matches, people of South Africa, and even an African safari. Most of the photos were taken by Starr and Curt Hamakawa, associate professor of Sport Management and director of the Center for International Sport Business. A goalkeeper, Starr was a four-year veteran of the Golden Bears soccer team and a tri-captain his senior year.
Western New England University is a private, independent, coeducational institution founded in 1919. Located on an attractive 215-acre suburban campus in Springfield, Massachusetts, Western New England University serves 3,700 students, including 2,550 full-time undergraduate students. Undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs are offered through Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, and Pharmacy, and School of Law.
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