Nicole Melton has spent the last four years of her budding career in higher education teaching students the importance of breaking barriers in the intercollegiate sports arena.
A former athlete, she could have steered her career toward coaching, but she chose otherwise.
“I felt the best way to change the landscape of sport and make it more inclusive for individuals was to teach to future sport management people and the future coaches,” she says.
An assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Melton’s roots in athletics date back to her high school years in San Antonio—a place where golfing was both popular and affordable for youth. While it was a very competitive sport, Melton excelled enough in high school golf to earn a scholarship to Texas A&M University.
As an undergraduate student-athlete, she noticed differences in how her peers approached athleticism. While Melton and many of her female teammates used golf as a pathway to earning a degree, she says, a lot of the male athletes focused on playing professionally.
After receiving a bachelor’s in marketing in 2005, Melton got the chance to play pro. While playing on an expert level, she noticed gender differences as well. Most of her female counterparts participated in classes where “they’d give you advice on your hair, your makeup, and different things like that,” she says, adding that the class was not a priority for males.
“So that keyed me into these issues of how female athletes are expected to be versus how male athletes are.”
