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Join The Urban Rez for an exciting journey that dives into the intersections of culture, sports, and lifestyle with a fresh, global, inclusive perspective. Each 30-minute episode brings a unique blend of conversations, stories, and interviews that explore the passions and experiences that define our lives.
Wesley Knight 0:00
This is a Kun V studios original program. The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Marcus White 0:14
The urban RES is underwritten by Southwest gas. Since 1931 southwest gas has been committed to serving the communities we live in. Employees actively volunteer for and support organizations and initiatives that make our communities better places to live. For more information, SW, gas.com, show
Happy Sunday morning, welcome everybody. Oh boy. It has been a great month. Dr B we had a smashing time in the Crescent City in New Orleans during Super Bowl. We
Dr. B 1:26
sure did. We cannot wait to just tell you all what happened in New Orleans. United natives hosted our second annual sports Gala, which consisted of some dope people. For instance, Mr. Bernie cozar came to our event, Mr. Rashad Evans, UFC, Hall of Famer came to our event. Eric B, from Eric B and Rakim Hip Hop legend came and bless our event, we had Peter Gunn's Hip Hop reality TV star, and also Mr. Derek kinky, a famous Native American actor who now stars in the current hit TV series on Netflix called American Prime Evil.
Marcus White 2:06
Yeah, it was really awesome. But today we have a fantastic show for you. I'm about to introduce this one gentleman here. He's an awesome man. He's doing great work for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And let me introduce you to Mr. Jay Vickers, he's the CEO of UNLV sports Innovation Institute, a seasoned leader with over two decades of experience in management, fundraising, sales, marketing and customer service. He's also a Notre Dame alumnus and a former Fighting Irish football player. Jay has been instrumental in positioning UNLV as a hub for global sports innovation. His notable achievements include securing a $3.25 million federal appropriation for education and research initiatives, leading the institute to achieve official status from the Nevada System of Higher Education and orchestrating fully paid Super Bowl internships for 40 UNLV students as a founding member of Game Changers united. Jay actively promotes diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging with the US Soccer Federation. He is also a key figure in organizing the inaugural sports entertainment and innovation conference, which aims to explore the intersection of sports entertainment and innovation through his visionary leadership, Jay Vickers continues to elevate, you know, these prominence in the sports industry. Jay, man, all exactly is my brother. Welcome. Welcome to Urban res.
Jay Vickers 3:27
Well, I'm happy to be here, and I don't think I need to say anything else. You put everything in that introduction, right?
Marcus White 3:34
So, man, so you know, let's jump right into this. Can you share the mission and vision of the UNLV sports Innovation Institute and how it aims to impact the sports industry. Well, the
Jay Vickers 3:45
biggest thing here is, I can sit here and I can give you the definition, I'm looking at it here and I have most of it memorized. The key is, I'll go back a little bit, if that's okay. Absolutely is. We established as an initiative with the understanding that our ecosystem and Las Vegas was changing, we needed to make sure that there was a platform for our students and our faculty to showcase the great work they were doing within the sports and entertainment ecosystem. One thing we understood is that our students didn't really understand or were exposed to what this new ecosystem we were creating. Back in 2018 we know we had to go in the nights coming. What does that mean? How does that change everything? The Raiders are coming. We're going to have a two time World Championship WNBA team. No one knew that was going to happen. Now we have the A's and they say NBA team is coming. I mean all these wonderful things are happening. But what are the jobs? Does that mean I have to be a coach? Does that mean I have to be a player? Do I have to be a trainer? No, that's not what it means. Does it means that my research won't be accounted for, or my innovation won't get looked at? What exactly does that mean? And so what we decided to do was to build a bridge, if you will, not only for our students and faculty, so they can understand those opportunities, but also. Okay, have a bridge that connects to our external entities, that all the Raiders, the knights, the lights, the aces, the desert dogs and etc, and start standing up, hey, what does that look like from an educational standpoint, from a sports science standpoint, as well as the impact it has on economic development? So that's really the base of what the sports Innovation Institute does is we promote sports science, education and economic development. It's
Dr. B 5:24
awesome, man, wow. I'm loving the education piece. Can we please recommend to UNLV that they should implement something in the law school about sports law and entertainment law, but we'll touch on that later.
Jay Vickers 5:37
Well, we could say Sela, which is their sports entertainment and Law Association and is led by their students. And actually the reason why I know that is because, thanks to you mentioned, the Super Bowl host committee internship program that we had, we had the ability to not only look at students that had a sports management degree or a hospitality it was they had opportunities across the board, whether it was government, hospitality, volunteers, whatever. And so that forced us to get out of our comfort zone and have those conversations with our law school, for example, and we identified great students that were focusing on sports entertainment law. Amazing.
Dr. B 6:15
Can you please elaborate more on your initiative that you just spoke about, give us the rundown, because that's super exciting to hear how you integrated the student population into an amazing opportunity. So,
Jay Vickers 6:28
as stated earlier, I went to the University of Notre Dame. Super Bowl is not coming to South Bend, Indiana. You know, our Super Bowl is playing in the playoffs that when we played against Indiana, or, you know, getting to another national championship game. But the Super Bowl does not coming there. The beauty of Las Vegas is that everything comes here. You know, we're the global epicenter of all things SportsCenter entertainment, and so to have that opportunity is one very unique, and we once could say once in a lifetime, but we kind of know that's going to come back here at some point. But when it was Sam Joffrey, the CEO of the Las Vegas Super Bowl host committee. I got to give him credit and kudos to his team, because he approached us, with the help of the LBC VA, said, Hey, I need to hire students. We have 18 months to put on the greatest show on earth. Most cities get three to four years to plan a Super Bowl. Las Vegas got 18 months. And so what do we need to do to make this work really quickly, fast? How do we get the best and brightest? He had a meeting with us That stated, look, gave us all the deal points, how everything looks great opportunity for students. Same thing you hear when you hear about the internship program, but as you know, at these events, they typically don't get paid. If they do is, you know, they have a very small budget. And so a question was asked, What is your budget? Set $100,000 and I just sat back and said, Wow. Just still tremendous opportunity. But what he wasn't aware and what we have to do a better job of doing at our university is really stating our student population one of the most diverse campuses in the country, top five. Two thirds of our student population are non traditional and first generation students. And what that means to me, and although I'm a I went to University of Notre Dame, is that we don't have the type of students across the board that parents own Nestle or these type organizations. We have some really great students, don't get me wrong, but we don't have that across the board. And so if you want our best and brightest, we got to figure out ways that we can pay all of our students, and they don't have to make a decision between Starbucks. Nothing wrong with working at Starbucks, but working at Starbucks or taking advantage of something that could give them a lifelong journey. And so I said, Let's take us out the box. We already one of the most diverse schools in the country. Let's make this about diversity, equity and inclusion. That's not a dirty word or a dirty acronym. Absolutely not. And then how do we entice not only that diversity, but gender diversity, to get more people involved, that this is a happy place for everyone. We can have more Sandra, Douglas Morgans and with the NFL foundation support, that if we do a matching program, the first thing you said is that's never been done before. I said, That's exactly why we should do it. And Sam said, No, if we put the other presentation, I presented to the NFL Foundation, and we did it, and I took it to United Way of Southern Nevada, and they matched it. All in all, we raised over $350,000 paid our students, $25 an hour, if it was an approved internship for a class. We paid for three tuition credit hours.
Marcus White 9:12
So Las Vegas has rapidly involved into the global sports and entertainment hub. How does the institute leverage this unique environment to foster innovation and collaboration,
Jay Vickers 9:21
absolutely. So what we do is, on our campus, we realize through surveys that we have over 100 full time faculty members involved in sports related research innovation. So what we needed to do is, now you talked about appropriations and all the funding that we've been able to receive, and the reason why you can see receive that funding and get others to support it is you have to be good stewards of those funds. And so to date, we created a catalyst grant program and where we were able to entice our faculty to, hey, take that innovation or research off the shelf and let us help you take it to the next step. And so with that, I'm proud to say today, we have awarded over a million dollars in grants to our faculty. Faculty and students as well, if they have a faculty member as a full as a pi, and so that's been one way of doing that. And once that happens, we also created opportunities to showcase that. And so in the beginning, when I had the concept of the sports entertainment innovation conference called see con that you mentioned earlier, to get people excited about, hey, we can do this. I went to UFC. So I want to give credit to Lawrence Epstein and Peter dropick there as, hey, I need some help. Can we use the UFC apex? And maybe you're used to octagon as a stage, kind of get creative. But I want to host a sports resource. And they said, Yes, we hosted at UFC apex. The first year we had probably 120 550 people. Second year at 250 people. We need charge anyone. We allowed the Las Vegas community to come out that's involved in that our faculty that received grants, they had the opportunity to showcase the work they're doing and but we also invited all of our friends, and those friends, all your Raiders, the knights and etc, and got them involved in seeing these products. And to this date, we have a few that actually signed contracts with NFL teams, NBA teams, etc. So those are the type of things we did, and that also gave us the Running Start we needed to get people excited about see con. Can
Dr. B 11:10
you tell us when this conference is held and what people can look forward to about registration and things like that? Absolutely,
Jay Vickers 11:17
the conference will be held July 8 through 10th. It's held at the Virgin hotels. We love virgin it's a great location for exactly what we want to do is the key to see con is education plus collaboration equals Deal me. And so that's what they can expect when they come. They can expect very intellectual folks in the space of sports and entertainment and innovation. We'll have an international corridor that would feature entrepreneurs and startups from business, France, Australia, Canada, as well as your see our partners, like USA Today sports, who is our presenting sponsor, UFC raiders and etc, and other thought leaders from across the globe that are that would be on panels that will discuss globalization, the globalization of sport, where talk about the economy here in Las Vegas, and what that means, and how it continues to grow, and how quickly we became a sports and entertainment capital. As well as your see our friends from the universe of Syracuse University, who, who we partner in see COVID. Okay,
Marcus White 12:16
so if you're, oh, if I was a small business, which I am, and I wanted to be a part of be an exhibitor at the event. Is that possible? And if so,
Jay Vickers 12:28
it is possible, we would just have a conversation with you, and we'll schedule a meeting and see how we can make that work. Okay? Absolutely. So
Marcus White 12:35
you guys hear that out there? Any entrepreneurs and
Dr. B 12:37
our researchers? Yay for the academics here. Absolutely. All
Marcus White 12:41
right. So reflecting on your role as a founding member of Game Changers united, and your efforts in promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and belonging, how do these values influence the institute's initiatives and culture? Well,
Jay Vickers 12:54
first and foremost, we we believe our team, and that's my teammates, Margaret Valley, Dr John Mercer of Brooke, Conway, Cleveland, and Dr Nancy Lowe. Every decision we make needs to be have a fundamentally and foundationally needs to be involved in deib, and we need to make sure that we in events we do when we're talking earlier, we talked about just having panels. Now, a lot of times you can have a panel, a speaker panel, and not because you're trying to slight anyone, but you may look up at the panel, realize that everybody looks the same, right? And so we have to be intentional in our actions to ensure that we spread the wealth out, if you will, and allow other voices to be heard, because you never know who you going to inspire to be the next doctor or the next entrepreneur, and sometimes they need to see people that look like them on that stage. So we try to do a good job of making sure we and whether we're doing work with like right now, we have see con inspired events, for example, and we're working with the National the National Rugby League. They have a big event coming here at Alicia stadium this weekend, and they're actually, we're hosting them on our campus and partnership. And they're going to have their conference here, their first conference in Las Vegas, going to be on our campus at Stan Fauci on Friday, with some really great speakers, but we helped them organize it with our friends from circle and said, Listen, let's make sure we have some balance, if you will, on these panels. So being around great people from the US Soccer Federation, who are one of the first organizations like UFC to have equal pay for their athletes, I think it's really important, but sometimes people forget that UFC does the same thing, and I think that's something that we need to make sure that that message gets out and but you gotta love the fact we have great leaders that think about that. I'm
Dr. B 14:30
gonna kind of resort back to your background. And one common question I love to ask current and former athletes is, how has sports shaped your life and help guide you to where you're at now,
Jay Vickers 14:43
see, for me, I feel sports is the perfect metaphor for life. You have struggles, you have success. You have to rebound. You have to learn how to deal no, as coach holsters always say, act like you've been there before. If you do score a touchdown or you do something very you know, successful, but at the same time, if you if something doesn't. Go the way that you intended it to go. How do you have resilience? And so through sports, I've put together my own core values behind that. I feel to be successful in life, you have to be hard working. You have to have excellence with integrity. Excellence comes in many different forms, but it doesn't always have integrity, right? We've seen that, you know, in just in our world today, and then accountability, and that just been accountable for all the bad things that could happen, but also be accountable for the good things, you know. Pat yourself on the back a little bit, respect for people. Alastair's Teamwork, if you listen to those, that spells out heart. And so for me, I've always done things with my heart, and I let people see my passion for what I'm doing. If you want to know if I care, you could just hopefully you can hear it through my voice and how I'm talking to folks, and so that's really how it shaped me, is I played with everything I had in my heart. I believed in my coaches, I believe in my teammates, but I needed to figure out, how do I take all that energy and put it towards my career journey, whether it's my personal life or my professional life? And so sports helped me do that. That's great.
Dr. B 15:58
Thank you. I just I love the highlight of how sports applies to everyday life. I just look at a lot of my community members, especially our Native American youth, who have some, have not some, but the highest suicide rates across the board, and just kind of think of, if we can implement more sports programs to working with Native youth, how they can apply that into overcoming certain challenges that they might not have had those resources or experiences to learn from, because I know sports has shaped my life in such a capacity as well.
Jay Vickers 16:36
Yeah, I agree with you. I've had some conversations with some educators and educators of our youth, I feel that our youth need to have that experience across the board. And what I mean by that is they may get the experience to play a game, and so they think the only way out, if you will, is through that sport. And sometimes you have some educators say, Well, you know, it's so hard to be a professional athlete, that's the first thing they go to is so hard to be a professional athlete. So you should probably think about being a lawyer or a doctor or something else on the educational side, which is great, but you can still have the education side of it and become a team president, a General Manager. You can be a doctor of a team. There's so many things that you can do in sports. You can be the VP of sales, the VP of Marketing, sponsorship sales. There's so many jobs in sports that I think people are so used to just seeing the end result on Sundays or Saturdays or Wednesdays or Fridays, whatever day these like every day, it could be a sported event, but or even the people that are helping that, working at Nike Reebok, there's so many jobs, and I think if they can see that side of it and understand that It doesn't end because that was your final plan. You graduated and you didn't get that scholarship, or you didn't get drafted, or wherever the case may be, there's more that you can do in that space, that you can have an impact, not only your family, but also on probably more youth that you have an interest in. That man,
Marcus White 17:55
brother, thank you again for sitting in with us. We got to have you back. I mean, there's so much more questions, and I love it, yeah, that we can, that we can go into and again, people like yourself is definitely needed all over the world, especially, you know, great to have you in our community and and we wish you know you and the sports innovative Institute, much success. I'm
Dr. B 18:16
just going to put it out there and say, United natives would love to collaborate with you and UNLV on such sporting initiatives, because I know a lot of our work is bringing in communities that don't always have the opportunities. So I look forward to having that conversation, and I just want to put it on air. That's what I do. I
Jay Vickers 18:36
appreciate you doing that, and whether you put it on air or not, we need to make sure we make that happen and a reality. And I think you'll love if it's okay. Me to say we have time is our speed lap is whenever we didn't get a chance to talk about that. But that stands for sports performance, education and economic development. But it's really designed to be able to take sports science, education, economic development to those communities, all communities, but because we also understand that you or her or him, they can't always get to us. So how do we take it to them, regardless of their demographic? And so that's really something that the speed lab is for. And I want to thank Dr John Mercer for that, as he he had it in his mind. How do we take this to the people? And so this is our way of doing it. And we want to thank Captain transportation, because they actually donated the van to us so we can have the
Dr. B 19:21
speed lab. Oh, wow. Well, we look forward to having you back again. Such a dynamic discussion. A lot of us were not informed on what UNLV and the sports sector and innovation entertainment is doing, but now we know, and we can't wait to have the community buy in, buy in and support. Thank you so much. Thank you. The urban
Marcus White 19:39
RES is underwritten by the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Nevada's premier sports venue, hosting two NASCAR and NHRA race weekends and the largest annual electronic music festival in North America, the Electric Daisy Carnival. NASCAR will be in Las Vegas March 14 through 16th for tickets and more information, lvms.com, we have Dave. Dr Aida Esther bueno sardui, an anthropologist, filmmaker and educator from Toledo, Spain. Her short film Joaquina de Angola, memory of liberation, was installed at the center of contemporary culture Museum in Barcelona, Spain. Question one, can you explain to Americans what it what it is to be an Afro descendant from your point of view as a black feminist woman, anthropologist, film maker and educator, for
Maria Marinch 20:26
me, being an Afro descendant woman means that both my own body and the bodies of my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmothers, and all the women in my family are marked by a history connected to displacement, the kidnapping of millions of people who were transported to a place of no return, where they were forced to invent an entire new world, a cultural world, an emotional world. These were people who had to create their own history with what they carried in their minds because they were stripped of all the material possessions that would have helped them to preserve elements that reminded them of their culture. So for me, being an Afro descendant woman means recognizing that my own story is one of the most extraordinary creation that are liberation projects, which are complex and sophisticated, if not more so than the critical feminist theory. I believe this is one of our distinctions. We're not Africans, but neither are we Europeans. We are truly new, a creation of ourselves by ourselves. Not every society can say that, especially under the harsh conditions of nearly 400 years of slavery.
Marcus White 21:40
Question two, you have coined the concept feminismo. Dave baricone, feminism of the barracks. What does this mean nowadays?
Maria Marinch 21:49
I coined the term feminism of the barracks while studying for my doctorate in anthropology. I coined it from an academic feminism that seems to not fully understand that its theoretical construction cannot be sufficient for all women in every part of the world. For example, one of the characteristics of this European burgundist and enlightened feminism is the need of white European women to be allowed to leave their homes, work outside and have a public life for us, black women, Afro descendant women who were deprived of intimacy. This is not an issue. We were denied the ability to have our own families, our own homes, because we were always present in public spaces, often forcibly. This type of feminism highly focuses on issues of gender and sex, as I explained in my doctoral thesis, what we experience in terms of gender has nothing to do with that. It has to do with the fact that an enslaved man could not protect us, an enslaved man could not be a father in the barracks of slavery. Men and women were equals in the misfortune of enslavement. Under these conditions, we had to reinvent not just gender, but also family relationships. An enslaved man could not hold our bodies because the black man, too was enslaved. That is why I argue that black women are the ones who have best understood what patriarchy really truly is. The white man was our owner, and the black man was enslaved alongside us, we understood from there that our security and protection could come from neither. We did not have provider, husbands who gave us anything. Black women have fed each other and our children. One of the greatest tragedies of this history is the absence of men by our sides. We walked a long way alone, and many of our families are families of women alone with their children, where black men are often absent. We did not have a marriage contract where a man promised protection, food and shelter in exchange for obedience. That marital contract did not apply to us. A man promises protection to be a provider, and the woman promises obedience. We do not belong to that contract. We sought our own food. We have always worked, and very few black women have ever had a man who was a provider. Because of this, we understood patriarchy better, and we understood much better that our security could not be placed in the hands of any man, neither white nor black. We have protected ourselves and each other within our religions pantheon. We rescued elements of African cultures, recognizing that women have to make their own path. We're not waiting for anybody to come and protect us. That is a significant difference. This feminism of the barracks is not of Virginia Woolf asking for a room of one's own. We began our liberation journeys in the barracks with 200 other enslaved people we did not know, and in there we began to establish trust to. Need the hope of freedom. How can an academic enlightened feminism in the Burgos type claim to speak for us? We cannot subscribe to a feminist critique that does not resonate with our history? So I coined the term feminism of the barracks to explain that we come from another place and that those can't be our references or our theories. Question
Marcus White 25:20
three, how does all of these influence you as a filmmaker? How did you go from Guillermina and how this led to Joaquina de Angola? Well, my
Maria Marinch 25:31
work as an academic and Afro feminism theorist is deeply connected to my artistic work. What I do is precisely recover the names of forgotten women who are found in archives, in files from even centuries ago that nobody knows, even within the Afro descendant community. As a researcher, I've had the opportunity to get to know some of these names. I unpack these names from the files and bring them into the light through art, because academia structure is too rigid to carry out a true act of recovery through art, I reconstruct this Afro descendant memory, this reversed gaze that we were denied. For example, in the case of Guillermina, there are dozens and dozens of photographs of black women caring for white children. We have been erased from the history of photography the first black women who were photographed were often captured holding a white child in their arms. Why? Because in the early days of photography, exposure times were very long, at least a minute and a half of absolute stillness was required for the photograph to develop without blurring. Children would only remain calm in the arms of the person who cared for them and breastfed them. That is the reason why these black women are holding those children. And as a researcher, I can't view that image as beautiful, because I ask myself, where are those women's children? Where are the photographs and the collection of images that we don't have of these women with their own children, and that is the origin of Guillermina. Guillermina is a different contribution to a divergent interpretation of the image of the black women holding white children in their arms. We have been conditioned to look at these images as beautiful, but no because where are the sons and daughters of these women that transferred motherhood Those women who couldn't breastfeed their own children because their milk was sold to feed other children. This is Guillermina. Why is racism so strong if the majority of white men and women were raised by black women in our continent, Latin America, all the Borges white upper class were raised by black women, and how is it that this reality does not impact racism that is Guillermina an Joaquina de Angola generates the question, How is it possible that the stories similar to these young girls are not reflected anywhere? They are kept in a file, an archive, until it disappears or it's lost a girl of 14 or 15 who makes the most radical decision, either I am free or I die, and this story is going to be secluded forever in an archive written by her owner, a white man who is the only one to describe her and places her name in history. This story, which is not named after her needs to be changed. So through art, by taking Joaquina de Angola out of the archive, that is reinstatement. I as a black woman and an artist, I'm going to refute this narrative written by a white man, and I will ask questions that are different through art. How was it possible for this world to exist. I'm going to take you into a space where you're going to meet another Joaquina of Angela, not the one he described, but the one to whom I learned, my body, my mind, my agency so that she can exist. That is what archival recovery means to me, and in the film I'm currently working on, titled Anna Borja and her sacrament. It's the same thing. It tells the story of a woman in the 18th century who went to court and won her case in a world of slavery to remain free. She had already purchased her freedom, but it was contested, and they tried to re enslaved her. Therefore all my life as an artist is intertwined with the knowledge that I have as an archival researcher and with my commitment to recovery as much as possible as I can do recover the names of this black women that belong in my genealogical tree as barracks feminists. The
Marcus White 29:37
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