Previous Events
Guest Speaker
This past week, BOSSO had a special guest speaker come out and speak on sports: Sarah Baumgartner. Sarah is the Executive Senior Associate Athletics Director for Texas Athletics. She began her role in August 2021, and within her role, she provides supervision of head coaches, directors of operations, and program administrators for all 20 sports. She is the liaison to all areas within the athletics department that interact and support sports programs and is responsible for monitoring student-athlete recruitment, experience, academic progress, and welfare. Prior to her role at the Forty Acres, she served five years as deputy director of athletics at Rutgers University (2016-2021).
Research Project
BOSSO has also recently launched an internal football research project, utilizing a predictive model to forecast NFL player success from a psychological and behavioral perspective. This project utilizes natural-language processing (NLP) and machine learning to analyze interview transcripts of college football players, identifying linguistic and emotional patterns tied to performance, longevity, and leadership potential within the NFL. By combining psychological insights with regular data, the team is aiming to enhance draft strategy and overall player evaluation. The current focus is on collecting and transcribing interview data using tools such as Python, R, SQL, and sports data APIs, with expected deliverables including a predictive model, methodology report, and an interactive dashboard for model outputs. BOSSO’s overarching role within the project is to apply data analytics and psychological modeling to enhance how teams evaluate a player’s potential, ultimately advancing the goal of integrating behavioral insights into sports decision-making.
Member Spotlight
For our next member spotlight, meet Matt Gelb! Matt is a freshman Media Analyst from Los Angeles, California. Matt is planning on majoring in BHP and Finance with a minor in Analytics and Business of Sports. Despite being from California, Matt is a fan of northeast teams like the Yankees and Patriots. Matt is a part of the podcast team, which involves reaching out to potential guests, conducting research, editing sound bites, and creating promotional content. Despite Matt being excited to develop the podcast at greater length and hear from more industry professionals, he is most excited about the member research projects. He’s excited to navigate the ropes of data analysis in baseball with his team. His favorite part of BOSSO so far is the opportunity to meet other incredible students. Finally, Matt is extremely knowledgeable in Fantasy Football and can name the top-scoring fantasy football players at each position from the past five years.
Around UT
UT Football Stays Alive with Impressive Win vs. Vanderbilt: After a dominant first half and a shaky fourth quarter, UT picks up its second win of the season against a top-10 opponent at home.
Longhorns Battle Hard in Five-Set Thriller Against Texas A&M: UT’s Women’s Volleyball suffers its first loss against A&M, but has a tough game against ranked 3 Kentucky at home.
Texas Men Shine in the Pool: The Texas Men’s swim team delivered an impressive performance against Tennessee, winning 120 points to 65 points.
Longhorns Dominate Volunteers, Set Records in 135‑51 Victory: Texas women’s swimming & diving swept 10 events, and Freshman Eva Okaro set a school record in the 100 free, completing the overall sweep against Tennessee.