Eli Wolff

Eli A. Wolff is an instructor with the Sport Management program at the University of Connecticut. He also co-directs the Power of Sport Lab, a platform to fuel and magnify innovation, inclusion and social change through sport. Eli’s past work has been at the intersection of research, education and advocacy in and through sport. He has co-founded Disability in Sport International, Athletes for Human Rights and the Olympism Project.

In 2000, Eli helped to establish the ESPY Award for Best Male and Female Athlete with a Disability, and he organized the national disability sport organizations to support professional golfer Casey Martin in his successful case against the PGA before the U.S. Supreme Court. From 2003 to 2008, Eli led a global effort to include provisions addressing sport and recreation within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Eli worked with colleagues from 2007 – 2013 to establish the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace (IDSDP) on April 6 of each year as recognized by the United Nations and an official day on the international calendar, and he has been a co-coordinator of the global organizing team for the IDSDP. Eli has been the co-organizer of the annual Athletes and Social Change Forum with the Muhammad Ali Center from 2013 to the present.

Eli was a member of the United States Paralympic Soccer Team in the 1996 and 2004 Paralympic Games. Eli is a graduate of Brown University, and has an MA in Olympic Studies with the German Sport University of Cologne.