Dan Matheson, professor of instruction and sport and recreation management program director in the Department of Health and Human Physiology, coached teams in the 18th annual Tulane International Baseball Arbitration Competition in January.
The team, made up mostly of Iowa Law students, also included Ben MacArthur, a joint-degree J.D. and sport and recreation management graduate student and teaching assistant in the program, finished as semi-finalists in a field of 42 teams. They were eliminated in a hard-fought hearing against the eventual champions from Villanova Law. MacArthur's teammates included Iowa law students Tyson Williams and Nick Salas.
Matheson also led two other teams of law students, with the team of Luke Forszt and Julia Richards (JMC B.A. ‘23), winning the writing competition.
The competition occurred over winter break and was judged by Major League Baseball executives and agents who manage MLB salary arbitration cases.
“Thanks to the collaborative environment at Iowa that supports working across college lines, I’ve been able to develop and teach a five-week fall semester class in the College of Law that exposes students to the salary arbitration process in Major League Baseball and gives them practice at it,” Matheson said. “That experience every fall helps populate our teams for the Tulane competition every January.”
The class also provides co-curricular learning experiences for non-law students.
Reed Zahradnik (BBA ’22 and SRM minor ’22, MS ’23), who now works in the baseball operations department for the Texas Rangers, was a student assistant in the class. Zahradnik also supported Matheson in the Tulane competition on a volunteer basis for several years while preparing for his own career in baseball at Iowa. He continues to assist Matheson with the course while working for the Rangers.
Last fall, Matheson partnered with professor of practice Adam Kempenaar to give students in his Sports Analytics class a multi-day project working with law students to analyze baseball statistics and to apply the data to help structure their arguments.
“By the time we start preparing for the Tulane competition in December, our teams have a strong foundation of knowledge beneath them so the research they need to perform and arguments and materials they need to develop are second nature,” Matheson said. “It gives them confidence and enables them to deal with the unexpected when it comes up in the heat of competition.”
For more information, visit the University of Iowa College of Law Sports Law webpage.
