Dr. B. David Ridpath, Ed.D. is an Associate Professor of Sports Business at Ohio University in the College of Business. Dr. Ridpath has several years of practical experience in the sports industry and teaches classes in several relevant areas with a focus on Governance, Ethics, Leadership and Intercollegiate Athletics. His primary research areas include intercollegiate athletics administration, governance, and rules compliance with an emphasis on student athlete academic achievement and graduation rates. This includes the ethics and components of the NCAA legislative, enforcement, and governance process and the intersection of educationally-based sport development and delivery in the US with other developmental programs throughout the world. This is his second stint at Ohio University. He previously served as assistant wrestling coach at Ohio from 1994-95. He also earned a Masters of Sports Administration and Facility Management degree from Ohio in 1995.

Prior to returning to Ohio University in 2006, Ridpath spent two years directing the graduate sports administration program at Mississippi State University. Prior to MSU, he spent over a decade working in intercollegiate athletic administration and higher education including seven years at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where he served as an Adjunct Professor of Sport Management and Marketing, Director of Judicial Programs and Assistant Athletic Director for Compliance and Student Services.

He also worked in the athletic department at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, for three years from 1995-1997 as Assistant Director of Marketing and Promotions, Game and Event Management Coordinator, Director of Internal Operations, and Director of Compliance. While at Weber State he served as a media manager at the 1997 NCAA Men’s Basketball Western Regional in Salt Lake City and as Co-director of the Mid-American Conference Wrestling Tournament in 1996. As an undergraduate student at Colorado State University, he was a 1990 Distinguished Military Graduate in Army ROTC and spent over 12 years on active duty and in the Army National Guard, including two overseas tours in Germany. He is also a certified college and international wrestling official.

Ridpath received a Doctor of Education in Higher Education Administration from West Virginia University in May 2002. An accomplished scholar, he has over 70 national and international refereed presentations and 30 peer reviewed and edited academic articles in print. In addition, he has published two books, including his most recent entitled Alternative Models of Sport Development in America: Solutions to a Crisis in Education and Public Health, published by the Ohio University Press in 2018, six academic book chapters, and has had writings and editorials featured in the NCAA News, Sports Business Journal, Legal Issues in College Athletics. Dr. Ridpath has been retained several times as an expert in litigation involving college sports issues and is regularly interviewed on relevant issues in college sports within the media to include ESPN Outside the Lines, The Paul Finebaum Radio Show, and other national and international outlets such as the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Toronto Globe and Mail, USA Today, Indianapolis Star, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Birmingham News. Dr. Ridpath can be reached at ridpath@ohio.edu.