Rook Campbell’s work as a scholar, community leader, and storyteller is concerned with the ordinary, everyday encounters of sport, play, and games.

As a professor, Campbell explores the politics, money, and culture of sports. These academic workings may be laden with theory, but ultimately, the primary sports stakeholder is simple. Sport is about humans and lived experiences.

At the intersection of academia and art, Campbell created That Day I Was the Fastest Boy in the World as a public engagement aimed to build empathy, voice, and visibility through storytelling. Across the Los Angeles swimming community, Campbell designed and leads LANEMATE Project which hosts transgender and non-binary swim activations. The motivating vision is to better welcome folks to sports by helping remove the social hurdles that block some, more than others, from coming to experience the beauty and human wonderment that sports can make real.