It’s with a heavy heart that I share that my friend Andy passed away this past week. It’s taken me several days to write this announcement. I feel the same today as I did when I wrote the announcement of my father’s passing. Some sadness but mostly gratitude for having Andy in my life. Over the past few days, my family and I have prayed for Andy to be in a better place and that his family has peace during this time. Please read his Memorial Page to learn more about the life of this amazing man.

I first met Andy over twenty years ago when he was my Professor at the Haas School of Business. I still can’t believe it’s been that long. Over this time, we developed a friendship when he and his wife, Jo Ann, would pass through Dubai on their international trips. I became friends with both of them over several years as we all shared a passion for education and sports. Through Andy and Jo Ann, I got to see the power of both in terms of creating opportunities for people to achieve great success in life and to be a platform for connecting people from diverse backgrounds. Little did I know so many years ago that Andy would be the origin story and symbol for the vision and mission of Lens of Sport. Andy had one job in his career – 40+ years as a Professor and 18 years as the Associate Dean of one of the best business schools in the world. That was possible because he was admitted to Princeton in part because he played football, which led to his Phd at Stanford. So his amazing academic career started with sports.

I remember it as if it was yesterday when I met Andy to get his opinion on the idea of an education company that taught courses with sports examples with the vision to drive greater learning outcomes. He loved the idea and wanted to join me in this venture that didn’t exist. When Andy joined, the idea became a company and I’ve been on this long and challenging founder’s journey since. It makes me very sad to think that Andy will not be able to see what the company will become in the coming years. However, I believe the good work we do in this world outlives us through the ventures we leave behind and the people we impact.

It’s with that thought, I’m happy to announce that Lens of Sport will name its future Foundation the Shogan Family Foundation. We are going to work very hard to create scholarships and internship opportunities to inspire student athletes at all levels. Given that there are 500,000 NCAA athletes and 2,000,000 Club Sports athletes in college and 8,000,000 high school athletes, there is a far greater opportunity and likelihood to create more Dr. Andrew Shogans than Steph Currys (Andy was a Warriors fan). Please connect with us below if you are a student-athlete or represent an entity that is interested in partnering with us. Over the next several months we will share updates with the goal of launching the Foundation in January 2024.

Hany K. Syed
CEO

Shogan Family Foundation  

The Lens of Sport Shogan Family Foundation will provide academic and professional development resources for student-athletes starting in January 2024. Dr. Andrew Shogan, Co-Founder of Lens of Sport, and his wife, Jo Ann Shogan, are the inspiration for the Foundation. While the naming is a fitting recognition for Andy as a Co-Founder, it’s his life that will serve as the symbol for the Foundation. The vision of the Shogan Family Foundation is to leverage elite-level sports to create a wide range of opportunities for the millions of high school student-athletes and to inspire individuals who are not elite athletes to continue to play competitive team sports throughout their lives.