The University of Memphis will host a free five-part discussion series "Issues in College Sports" that will feature athletes, experts and professors starting Monday.
This will be the second year for the discussion, which is put together by Dr. Richard Southall's graduate class in the Sports and Leisure concentration of Health and Sports Sciences.
Two students in the class Ryan Luttrell and Patrick Byrne (a former U of M football player) helped put the panel together.
Byrne will also speak at one of the discussions on April 20.
"It's not like going to class," Byrne said. "It's like having a job."
Each week, panel discussions will feature presentations by the invited guests and a question and answer session with the audience.
The graduate students will serve as moderators during the event.
Some of the speakers include Olympic gold medalist Rochelle Stevens, City Council member Carol Chumney, editor-in-chief of Rivals.com Bobby Burton and Dr. Dan Rascher, who founded SportsEconomics.
The first forum, a discussion about the new Liberty Bowl stadium proposal, is the one with the most local impact, Byrne said.
"The stadium will affect a lot of people in the Memphis area, even if they didn't go here, or aren't fans," he said.
In the coming weeks, there will be topics that are relevant nationally, involving things such as the business side of sports and college recruiting.
The last four topics are issues that Byrne said the public might be less aware of, and this event could provide more information.
"These are really hot issues that the public needs to be informed on," Byrne said.
Planning for the event began in January when the students began brainstorming on topics they wanted presented and who they wanted to bring to the event.
"It's something that probably should have taken more than two months to put together," Byrne said.
He said that they began with a wish list of the highest ranked people and worked their way down.
"Luckily, we've gotten the people we wanted most," Byrne said.
Luttrell emphasized that the point of the discussions was not for the panelists to debate one another.
"We really hope they don't get up and debate and argue because we want everyone's views to be heard," he said.
The students also said that they felt this year's event would be better than the last and hoped it would grow even larger in the future.
"Last year they didn't have the budget, so they couldn't get the people that they have this year," Byrne said.
Luttrell said that experiences help to make this year's event even better.
"This year we had the framework set up. It's helped to have this framework," he said, "I would expect next year people will work from our framework to make it even better.
The two also have different ideas on who they would like to invite in the future.
Lutrell said he would like to get more athletes involved, while Byrne said he would like to bring the National College Athletics Association director.
"It would validate what we're doing if someone like that would be interested in it," Byrne said.
The panel will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Rose Theatre on March 19. The remainder of the events will take place in Ball Hall on March 26, April 6, April 13 and April 20, also at 4:30 p.m.
