Student-Athlete Kevin Boyce Takes On Brown University

The Sydcast

Episode Summary

University students and Covid. Scholar-athletes fighting to preserve their sport in a diminished resource environment during Covid. African-American students willing to have the “uncomfortable” conversations with classmates, professors, and administrators. Competing to get better every day. Kevin Boyce from Brown University, on The Sydcast.

Sydney Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.

Kevin Boyce

Born and Raised in Columbus, Ohio, Kevin Boyce is a Brown student. He most recently graduated undergrad studying Business, Entrepreneurship, and Organizational studies and intends to complete his master's in Public Affairs this spring. He is a sprinter on Brown’s track and field team doing his college career. Outside of Track, he has also been involved in community building and advocacy for marginalized communities at Brown, most recently serving as a staffer for the Brown Center for Students of Color and having been appointed to Brown’s Anti-Black Racism Task Force, whose goal was to best address how the university handles issues of racism in a way that reflects Brown’s mission of education, scholarship, and service to society.

Insights from this episode:

• The impact of Kevin’s classes on his life
• Diversity in campus
• Kevin’s life on campus
• Studying during COVID-19
• Kevin’s copying mechanisms during COVID-19
• The importance of setting boundaries
• What it takes to be a fast learner
• Kevin’s definition of winning

Quotes from the show:

• “It (studying during COVID-19) was such a chaotic experience just particularly the way that everything unfolded so fast” —Kevin Boyce [15:19]
• “For me personally, it was hard to not be as active as I had been. I had to find new ways to be active” —Kevin Boyce [18:24]
• “It was still nice to have some sort of social interactions. I personally appreciated and appreciate my friends a lot more than I have before. I am not saying I didn’t appreciate them, but we really take that for granted when you have it and it’s taken away from you” —Kevin Boyce [20:26]
• “Sprinting in particular is a very technical experience. It’s not just going out there and just running as fast as you can. A lot of it is form, a lot of it is positioning of your body, a lot of it is general strength” —Kevin Boyce [26:28]
• “For me personally, and I think for a lot of people on the team, it’s not always just about being the very best of the best, but what it’s about is just being better incrementally each and every day. I go to practice every single day just trying to be a little better than I was the day before, a little better than I was the week before, and that progress gets me to be able to win” —Kevin Boyce [30:38]
• “I just think that in general if you know you are not going to be the very best of the best, you have to 1) believe that you can be and 2) work to get incrementally better every single day” —Kevin Boyce [33:19]
• “We as a community need to have conversations that do make us feel a little uncomfortable from time to time” —Kevin Boyce [42:42]
• “I think that putting ourselves in a position to have uncomfortable conversations allows us to really have the progress we seek to make as a collective group, as a human race in general” —Kevin Boyce [43:25]

Stay connected:

Sydney Finkelstein

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Kevin Boyce

Twitter: Kevin Boyce

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry.