Twenty-five years ago, Tim DeSchriver joined his first academic association, the North American Society for Sport Management (NASSM). In 1995, a NASSM meeting was the first place DeSchriver presented his sport management research. And this year, Deschriver received the NASSM’s 2019 Dr. Garth Paton Distinguished Service Award in recognition of the important roles he’s served in the organization. 

“Tim has been instrumental for our society for the last decade,” said Bob Heere, president of the NASSM. “As the treasurer of NASSM and member of the executive council, he helped guide our society towards an era of professionalization, and ensured we maintained a fiscal responsible strategy throughout his tenure. It is because of members like Tim that NASSM has become the organization it is today, and for that we are very grateful. Nobody was more deserving in winning this award than Tim.”

DeSchriver, who is an associate professor of sport management at the University of Delaware’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics, said that the award means a great deal to him. The NASSM, he said, has provided him with many professional opportunities and long-lasting friendships. 

“It has been a pleasure to serve NASSM whenever possible, so it is humbling to be recognized for the service that I have provided through the years,” he said. “It is also nice to be recognized by your peers in the academic field.”

In addition to serving as the association’s treasurer and a member of the executive council, DeSchriver has spent 15 years on the editorial board of the NASSM’s academic journal, the Journal of Sport Management (JSM), which is considered the leading research journal in the field. He has also served on several committees, and has been an abstract reviewer and section head for the academic portion of the NASSM’s annual conference. 

In terms of his future goals in working with the NASSM, DeSchriver said: “I would like to continue my work on the editorial board of JSM and continue to review abstracts for the annual conference. Beyond that, I will wait and see. I just finished my six-year appointment as the treasurer, which included serving on the executive council, so I am going to take a step back from that and allow some other members the opportunity to make their mark on the association.”