A University of South Carolina graduate has returned to campus, but this time she’s on the other side of the classroom.
Kelly Evans Grieshaber, Ph.D., returned to the College of Information and Communications as an instructor this fall, and she is pioneering new programs and classes intended to enhance the rapidly growing sports media sequence.
“I like to call myself a Quadruple Gamecock,” Evans says. “This will be my fourth time coming back to USC.”
While at USC, Evans earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sports management before graduating with a doctorate in sports marketing and sponsorship in 2019.
Evans said she initially was drawn to USC for its location, rich history and especially for its excellent sports management program. While in school, she was heavily involved in various programs, clubs and internships to gain experience wherever she could.
As a high school student, Evans worked as a merchandise vendor for the Harrisburg’s Senators in her hometown in Pennsylvania and managed the Lexington County Blowfish Baseball Club for seven years while working on her undergraduate and master's degrees.
After that, she worked both in and out of graduate school while simultaneously receiving an education and vital workplace skills. Evans took a gap year between her graduate and doctorate degrees to work at the Columbia branch of Cumulus Media to develop experience in sales.
Upon earning her doctorate, Evans traveled from the east coast to teach for six years at the Metropolitan State University of Denver in Colorado, where she earned tenure and was promoted to associate professor. But a desire to be closer to family started to draw her back to the southeast.
Though Evans was originally planning to teach in the Charlotte area, a faculty member from USC's Sport and Entertainment Management program reached out to her over the winter and told her of a position at USC to teach classes in sports media and brand communication.
“It sounded like me,” Evans says. “I knew it was going to be everything I was interested in.”
Evans says the opportunity was perfect for her, and her love for Columbia’s rich tradition, central location and Gamecock pride brought her back to USC.
“I’m so excited to get to know my colleagues and students,” Evans said. “I hope to bring my creativity and flair with me to the classroom.”
As a professor at the CIC, Evans teaches face-to-face and online courses while helping to nurture the growth of the sports media sequence, one of the most rapidly growing programs at the college, which now has more than 100 students..
To accommodate this sudden growth, Evans is helping to develop a course in brand communication management for athletes that she will teach in the spring of 2026.
Evans says the course is designed to help teach students about the importance of branding and marketing their name, image and likeness (NIL) in college sports.
According to Evans, being able to brand NIL for college athletes allows them to make a profit from their depiction in the media and prevent outside sources from using their NIL without their consent. For college athletes especially, Evans says learning to market on NIL can be crucial to building a career.
Evans believes that athletes need to learn how to brand themselves appropriately and use marketing tools, and her new course will teach not only athletes, but also other CIC students just that.
Kevin Hull, who directs the USC sports media program, said he initially had no idea who would teach the Brand Communication for Athletes course. Once he met Evans, he knew she was perfect for the position.
“She blew us away with all that she could do,” Hull said. “Her ability and what she could teach was exactly what we needed. I see her as our sports media Swiss army knife.”
Evans said she hopes her students walk away not just with the content that she teaches them, but with “transferable skills” as well. And after just one semester, she’s already leaving an impression on her students.
Two of those students, Tanya Templeton and Ally Tindall, say they have both enjoyed her class.
Templeton describes Evans’ course as creative, engaging and relevant to not only their studies, but to the outside world as well. According to Tindall, Evans once included events from the day before in one of her lectures.
“I’m so inspired by her,” said Templeton, a freshman studying Sports Media. “She makes being successful in my major seem possible.”
“Seeing how accomplished she is helped me decide to go to graduate school,” said Tindall, a senior studying visual communications. “Seeing what she has done makes me believe I can do it all, too. She’s like a real-life Barbie.”
Evans says she is eager for opportunities to continue growing at USC.
“Whatever opportunities that arise that align with my strengths, I will always say yes to.”
Ellie Runkel is a first-year journalism major and environmental science minor. Beyond the classroom, Runkel loves to spend time outdoors and write creative works of fiction. She wrote this article for Bertram Rantin’s Writing for Mass Communications course.