Key Initiatives and Programs

Research & Publication
State of Sport Colorado
To ground the research agenda of the SOSCO Research lab, we initiated our 2024-25 research study, State of Sport Colorado: Developing a Statewide Framework to Understand and Improve Coloradans’ Sport Experience Over the Lifespan. Challenges within sport vary based on decision-makers responsibility to connect organizational behavior and governance at the macro level, situate organizational action into social life at the meso-level, and direct attention to participants impacted directly at the micro-level. We recognize these challenges appear to be heightened when an understanding of how they coexist is lost. In fact, sport is organized and administered in varying ways but cataloging this has not been done specifically in Colorado. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine sport organizations in the state of Colorado to describe first how they are organized, and second, define state-level sport ecosystem archetypes. Like other American states or territories, excluding Puerto Rico’s Department of Sports and Recreation, no official state-wide organization system exists to understand relationship dependencies at play or provide consistent quality assurances for communities served through a sports network such as this. Organizing sport across the state uncovers best practices and opportunities for innovation across the athlete’s lifespan, captures universal recurring patterns useful for quickly identifying the most common relationships for a unified system of understanding, and assist in collaborative public and private partnerships that identify significant areas of impact for sport participation.

Short-Term Community-based Participatory Research Projects
Current Community Partner: Project Play Colorado
Since November 2024, Drs. Gearity and Houston were added to the Executive Committee for Project Play Colorado to support the core work of the initiative including data collection, partnership development, and communications. Project Play Colorado is a collective impact initiative comprised of state-level entities and community organizations aiming to increase opportunities for youth of all ages to participate in sports. It is the first statewide initiative of Project Play, an Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program-led effort which develops insights, ideas and opportunities to build healthy children and communities through sports. Given the opportunity to align with 63X30 and the Healthy People 2030 target of 63% of youth participating in sports, Project Play Colorado aims to raise the state’s current youth sports participation rate of 54.5% to 63% and be a model for other states. Project Play Colorado is supported by a dynamic advisory board made up of professionals from across the state representing sports providers, governing bodies, and community entities. Additional sports and recreation groups are encouraged to join the state-wide coalition.