Student-Athletes Abroad
International Education Designed for Athletes, by Athletes
Our Mission & Philosophy
A Commitment to Student-Athletes as Students First
Student-Athletes Abroad offers international education programs designed to remove barriers that typically prevent student-athletes from studying or interning abroad while using sports as a vehicle to increase cultural immersion and maximize educational opportunities.
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Our programs are created by athletes for athletes. We firmly believe in providing student-athletes a balanced experience abroad. We achieve this by offering exceptional academic experiences, unique opportunities for engagement with local communities through our partnerships, daily workouts and training with local athletes, and plenty of time for exploring local attractions.
As former athletes, we know that coaches play an integral role in a student-athletes decision to study abroad. We've worked with college coaches across the country to build programs that turn coaches into international education advocates.
The Student-Athletes Abroad Story
Connecting the World Through Sports
​Student-Athletes Abroad is the academic arm of Beyond Sports. It houses our academic and international internship programs for student-athletes to participate in during their off season.
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Beyond Sports was co-founded by two former college basketball teammates, Josh Erickson and Grant Leslie. After graduating from Willamette University, both Grant and Josh had unique international experiences in Costa Rica, coaching the Men’s and Women’s Costa Rica National Basketball and Men’s National Baseball teams and building connections with sporting communities abroad. They were inspired by the power of cross-cultural understanding through sports and wanted to create opportunities for student-athletes to travel abroad and create meaningful connections and unique experiences through their sport. While attending the “New Venture to Launch” MBA program at the Atkinson School of Management, Grant and Josh began bringing student-athletes down to Costa Rica for the first-ever Beyond Sports programs.
Since 2010, Grant, Josh, and the rest of the Beyond Sports team have expanded program offerings from Costa Rica to over 8 other countries (South Africa, Spain, Italy, Greece, Australia, Thailand, Panama, Northern Europe, and more). We have hosted over 5,000 athletes from 500+ universities through Beyond Sports College & High School Tours, Beyond Sports Team Trips, the Girls Leadership Academy for Service & Sport (GLASS), and Student-Athletes Abroad.
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Our collective staff, based within the U.S. and abroad in our international program locations, are all former competitive college athletes and are passionate about creating accessible international education opportunities for student-athletes.
Our Brands
Student-Athletes Abroad
The SAA brand houses our more traditional study abroad programs, international internships, international service trips and custom faculty-led programs. Our program catalog includes summer, Jan-term, and full-semester options as well as custom spring-break service through sport trips. Programs are designed to leverage student-athletes' interest in sports to increase cultural immersion and pursue a wide variety of academic and professional development interests while maintaining off-season workouts abroad.
Beyond Sports College & High School Tours
Our sports tours programs combine competition, service-learning and adventure and cultural excursions in an affordable 10-day package. Individual student-athletes from high schools and colleges across the country are combined to form a team and share the experience. This program is a great introduction to international travel and often ignites a desire to pursue longer-term programs.
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For more information, visit: beyondsportstours.com
Beyond Team Trips
Also known as Foreign Tours, international team trips take advantage of a NCAA rule that allows entire teams to travel abroad once every 3 (DIII) or 4 (DII and DI) years. Coaches appreciate the unique team building experience away from campus distractions as well as the opportunity to practice and play games outside of normal season dates. Our organization is unique among team trip providers in our focus on cultural immersion and service-learning. We also have the ability to incorporate credit-bearing academic coursework during a team trip if desired.
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For more information, visit: beyondsportstours.com
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Girls Leadership Academy for Service & Sport (GLASS)
The mission of GLASS is to empower the next generation of female leaders through sports, service, and global engagement. This international leadership development adventure is designed to help high school female athletes unleash their full potential.​ High school girls from around the U.S. come together for this 10-day trip in Costa Rica to step outside their comfort zones, receive mentorship from former collegiate athletes, and become more confident in their leadership abilities.
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For more information, visit: beyondsportsglass.com
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Beyond Sports Inc. and our brands are a proud member of Terra Education.
For more information, visit: https://www.terraeducation.com/.
