An ability to bring different skills to bear helped a team of five UWindsor sport management students claim top honours last week in the inaugural case study competition at the University of Waterloo.

“We all used our own strengths to bring something great to our presentation,” says team member Maggie Aziz.

She and her teammates — Sheldon Fetter, Amanda Purdie, Zack Sephton, and Emily Stadder, coached by professors Jess Dixon and Patti Millar — took home a $1,000 prize for their efforts.

The structure of the competition challenged teams from five Ontario universities to create a 12-minute case presentation within four hours. Coming in they knew the client, Point Guard College basketball camps, but not the details of the case. After the presentation, each team responded to questions from PGC Basketball officials.

The experience was new to the students, who cite it as one of the most valuable of their undergraduate careers.

“Our team gained confidence and realized we were prepared and capable,” Stadder says. “The win of the event was a great validation of the effort we put in.”

Purdie adds that the family atmosphere in the Faculty of Human Kinetics played a key role in their success.

“We brought a level of authenticity to the table, and I really do credit our human kinetics program for that,” she says.” While developing the five-year plan for PGC, our team invested so deeply into the case that we actually started referring to ourselves as members of the company, using the terms ‘we’ and ‘us.’ The audience couldn’t help but smile along with us, and the panel absolutely loved it.”