For Angela Robles, EdD ’09, professor and co-program director in the MS in Physical Education program and overseer of sports management and curriculum, Azusa Pacific University has been a place where she can implement her passion for sports into a career while supporting the next generation of athletic leaders and raising a family.
Sports were a key part of Robles’ childhood and teenage years, and she received a full scholarship to Notre Dame for her softball skills. She said that her time at Notre Dame as a young adult trying to figure out how to be independent, a student finding a love of learning, and an athlete getting to be on a team that traveled the world was challenging but rewarding. “I had some fear about the academic side of college because I struggled to feel like I belonged academically since I was there for athletics,” Robles said. “Through mentorship from my professors, I shifted from just an athlete to a scholar as well. In my senior year, I came to appreciate and love learning which catapulted me into grad school to further my education.”
After graduating from Notre Dame in 1999, there were not many opportunities to play professional softball. However, Robles was invited to go abroad and play professionally with the Italian National League in Verona. Only about four of her teammates could speak English. Her coaches mostly spoke Mandarin, and Robles could only speak English and a bit of Spanish. “The language barriers taught me to value culture and create relationships with my teammates,” she said. “Many of my ideas about how I live my life, raise a family, and teach in the classroom are rooted in my time in Italy.”
After playing abroad, Robles coached at Long Beach State, and was looking for a program where she could earn her master’s degree while continuing to coach. Some of the coaches in her life had also earned their master's at APU, so Robles looked into the program and found that it offered her the flexibility she needed. “APU has so much support, structure, and faculty that want to know you and are accessible,” she said. In 2001, Robles earned her Master’s Degree in Physical Education before going on to receive her EdD in Higher Education Leadership from APU in 2009.
During her time studying at APU, Robles met her husband who was also a graduate student at the time.
I wanted to have a family, and working at the highest level of collegiate sports didn’t offer the life balance I was looking for,” she said. “In the doctoral program, I began thinking about our faculty and how it would be great to stay in academics but still have connections with coaches and athletes.
Robles began teaching in 2002 at APU’s San Diego Regional Center.
Robles teaches online classes, so her approach to faith integration and creating relationships with her students is extremely intentional. Her priority is to cultivate genuine relationships with her students before she opens the door for faith conversations to tie into the curriculum. “My graduate students come from diverse faith backgrounds, and I want to honor where they’re coming from by finding common ground,” she said. “Then we can work through conversations about how to be a good neighbor when working with community stakeholders or building a stadium and how we look at the concept of losing in the context of faith.” Robles remembers her fear and hesitation in engaging in academics as a student-athlete, so she also tries to create relationships with her students that are built on encouragement, confidence, and a joy of learning.
While she has influenced athletics at APU, Robles has also worked with athletes from numerous NCAA Division I programs and the USA Olympic Softball Team that participated in the Tokyo games through her research and consulting business, The Forza Institute. Forza means strength in Italian, and it's a strengths-based assessment test that utilizes the CliftonStrengths assessment to see how individual athletes and coaches take on certain roles on a team. With this information, Robles is also able to coach teams on how they can better communicate and build relationships through assessments and workshops. Now, she is integrating her research into the classroom so that students can better know themselves and change the posture they take as future athletes, coaches, and educators.
Robles and her husband have two daughters, a high school senior and an eighth grader. “My family is the most important thing in my life and the reason I do what I do everyday,” she said. “I loved being an athlete and a coach, but the greatest blessing in my life has been being a mom. Teaching has been such a gift because it has allowed me to be present for my family while being able to work professionally. What keeps me anchored at APU is how rewarding it is to come full circle and invest in the program I graduated from before I was married, had kids, or even knew what professional career I would have.”