The host of the Holding the Ladder in Sport and leadership podcast, Dr. Tim Rice is the Lead Faculty for the Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) program, as well as a Lead Faculty Member in the Sport and Performance Psychology specialization in PsyD program at University of Arizona Global Campus. He came to the University of Arizona Global Campus after serving in a similar role at University of the Rockies. Dr. Rice grew up on the Alabama Gulf Coast in a small town about 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico (Robertsdale). He has been in higher education for over 20 years at colleges and universities acros ..read more

Dr. Marty Durden has nearly five decades of athletic leadership experience. He is currently the athletic director at Calvary Christian School in Columbus, Georgia. Durden earned his Doctor of Education degree in sports management from the U.S. Sports Academy in 2016 and has written extensively about the “servant-leader” model of coaching, including in a 2019 Sport Digest piece titled "The Call for a Higher Standard Than Winning" and authoring "More Than Winning: The Servant-Leader Coach in Contemporary Society," released in December 2022: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/more-than-winning-mart ..read more

Eabha Rutledge is a successful county and club Gaelic footballer with Kilmacud Crokes and her county team Dublin. She has been part of Dublin's All-Ireland four-in-a-row panels and a recent Division 1 league final win against Cork. She is a Fund Accounting Supervisor at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and is also a sport entrepreneur as she set up a dry weather GAA gloves company, Great Grip Gloves. This idea goes back to her participation in an exchange visitor program in the United States on a J1 visa in Chicago in summer 2017 when she lined out with Aisling Gaels. Having always worn standard foam ..read more

Dr. David Tenney is the High Performance Director for Austin FC in Major League Soccer (MLS). He has a wealth of major league sport experience, including several successful seasons in MLS, and a long history in soccer in the U.S. and internationally.  He joined Austin FC after three years as the first High Performance Director for the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s Orlando Magic (2017-2020) following 11 seasons in MLS. During Tenney’s stewardship of the Magic’s high performance department, the Magic made back-to-back playoff appearances for the first time since 2012. Tenney joine ..read more

Hannah Thornton has always been passionate about sport. She played basketball for Ireland at the age of 14 and at the age of 17 obtained a sports scholarship with the University of Northern Colorado, playing in NCAA Division I's Big Sky Conference. She also devoted a little time to study, obtaining her Bachelor Degree in Sports and Exercise Science and a separate degree in Nutrition.​ After graduation, Hannah began work at an elite sports-specific training facility in Colorado Springs, Colorado where the focus was to transform young adults into top athletes. Here, she qualified as a ..read more

Dr. Maryrose Blank is a Sport and Performance Psychology Consultant with over 15 years of experience incorporating mental skills training with various populations to include the military, athletes, coaches, and other high performing corporate organizations.   Dr. Blank began her career in college athletics, working at several colleges and universities before transitioning to working with the military. For over a decade, most of her efforts have involved supporting the Department of Defense in Human Performance program design and implementation, with an emphasis on cognitive and menta ..read more

Don Griffin is the founder of 1821 Skills Camp in Baton Rouge, LA. It is a program directed at young football athletes. He specifically works with quarterbacks and receivers inside the chalk, with the goal to make their better their best. His desire is to impact the athletes in the time spent inside the white lines, so that the life they choose to live outside the lines of the field will bless their Creator, their family, their community, and themselves. Don was a High School All-American quarterback and was highly recruited by many of the major football programs in the country in 1972. He pla ..read more

Scott Hunter is a former NFL quarterback who played for eight seasons for the Green Bay Packers, Buffalo Bills, Atlanta Falcons, and Detroit Lions, retiring in 1980. Before his NFL career, he was the starting quarterback for the Paul "Bear" Bryant-led Alabama Crimson Tide. Hunter is one of five Alabama quarterbacks (Blake Sims, Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones, and Bryce Young) to throw for 400 yards in a game. After his NFL career concluded, Hunter returned to Alabama and worked as a sportscaster in Mobile for nearly two decades. He worked for WKRG-TV, the CBS affiliate, and then for WPMI-TV, the N ..read more

Ari Kafka is a former professional athlete and current Mental Performance Coach for athletes. He likes to help athletes flourish under pressure and overcome mental blocks to excel at their game. Additionally, he helps transitioning athletes who are ending their sport playing careers dig deep to find their unique character strengths and how they can utilize them on a daily basis. He guides them on their journey to find their next passion in their lives. In between High School and College, he was fortunate to work with Dick Radatz ("The Monster"), a dominant closer for multiple Major League Base ..read more

After 24 years of combined experience as a special operations veteran in both the Canadian and US militaries, Phil Kornachuk uses proven leadership principles to foster exceptional performance for individuals, leaders and teams from a variety of fields. He currently works for the Fargo, North Dakota-based Allegro Group as the Managing Director of Leadership Development. Solid leaders held the ladder for Phil (and sometimes pushed him up it) as he evolved from being a 17-year-old high school dropout to a Lieutenant Colonel in US Army Special Operations Command. Serving as a Ranger, Green Beret ..read more