Going for gold: BGSU alumna plays starring role for Team USA Figure Skating ahead of the 2026 Olympics
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Courtney Burson ’19 is the senior team manager for U.S. Figure Skating, a central behind-the-scenes role that helps America’s athletes thrive on international stages.
Not long ago, Courtney Burson ’19 joked that her wardrobe became almost entirely orange-and-brown polos.
These days, however, Burson’s every waking moment is laser-focused on gold.
As the senior team manager for U.S. Figure Skating, the Bowling Green State University alumna plays a central behind-the-scenes role by helping Team USA’s figure skaters thrive on international stages. In February, Burson will be at the center of the biggest event in the sport: The Americans are gold-medal favorites at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.
Burson works within U.S. Figure Skating’s high-performance department by managing all international competition for the best, most elite skaters from the United States, a pool of about 45 athletes. She plans travel, coordinates with competitions all across the world and is at the ground level of making Team USA, a years-long process filled with deep personal connections.
Without question, it’s a dream job.
“I work with these athletes day in and day out, and I know all of the effort and training they put into this,” Burson said. “When they have a season-best or personal high score, or even just hit their final pose on the ice and pump their fist, it’s so special. There’s nothing better than seeing them happy with how they performed and showing that on the ice.”
A Columbus native who loved sports and dreamed of being behind the scenes for major competitions, Burson took her first steps into the sports industry by choosing BGSU.
Burson learned about the sport management program at the University, took one tour – her only college visit – and made her decision to attend BGSU right then.
“I credit so much of this career back to Bowling Green.”
-Courtney Burson ’19
Senior team manager at U.S. Figure Skating
As a student, she became involved early and often by volunteering for BGSU Athletics events, working a three-year internship with Learfield Sports on campus and, fittingly, coordinating travel for the Sport Management Alliance on campus.
“I just thought it was so exciting to see the other side of it,” she said. “If you grow up into sports, I think you go to a football game or a hockey game and say, ‘OK, but how does this work?’ It’s not like you just show up and it all comes together. It takes people to make it work, so seeing it up close was really fascinating.
“Seeing the inner workings of a sporting event as a BGSU student really fueled me to want more.”
Burson said her rise is directly correlated to BGSU, where the many opportunities for sport management students to become involved helped launch her career and she formed close connections with expert faculty that included sport management professor and program coordinator Amanda Paule-Koba, Ph.D.
“I credit so much of this career back to Bowling Green and Amanda Koba,” she said. “She was my guiding light when I was at BGSU.”
When listening to speakers with SMA or in classes, Burson knew she wanted some combination of elite athletics, personal connections and travel, and used her time at the University to begin plotting a course.
Burson took her first major step while still at the University. For her senior capstone, she was selected for the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s internship program, which served as her big break.
She parlayed the internship into a first job with USA Triathlon, the sport’s governing body, and created a network inside the small world of Team USA. When an opportunity opened with U.S. Figure Skating, the national governing body for skating, the role and Burson were a perfect match.
“For a while, I thought that my dream job didn’t actually exist,” she said. “I would listen to our professional speakers and like parts of what a lot of them said, but I would say, ‘OK, but how can I combine all of those things into one?’ But now I have a career that has all of those things – travel, athlete experience, international relations – and I couldn’t be happier.”
The year 2026 will be an important one for U.S. Figure Skating, as the Americans are a heavy favorite going into Milan. In early 2025, U.S. skaters combined to win three of four gold medals at the World Championships, as Ilia Malinin and Alysa Liu won men’s and women’s singles, respectively, while Madison Chock and Evan Bates claimed the pairs title.
At the Grand Prix of Figure Skating Final later in the year, all four Americans repeated as gold medalists.
For Burson, there’s no use in sugarcoating the sky-high expectations for Team USA: the Americans have what might be the best team in their history. A realistic pathway to gold medals, however, is what makes this time – and her job – so exciting.
When four Americans won at the World Championships, held on home soil in Boston, Burson said she had a moment of deep gratitude.
“I was standing down there after the best performance Team USA has ever had at a World Championships like, ‘Wow, I was part of this,’” she said. “It’s not all the time you’re at an international competition and you get to hear your national anthem played, let alone played three times in a sold-out TD Garden. It’s really special.”
Fourteen years ago, Burson said she watched the 2012 Summer Games on television and hoped to one day be involved in high-level sports.
A lifetime later, her dream has come true. Come February, Burson’s job will be all about helping Team USA perform its best on figure skating’s biggest stage.
“I remember watching the 2012 Olympics and saying, ‘I want to work at this one day,’” she said. “I think you can get lost in the day-to-day grind, but I think it’s important to step back and recognize I get to do something I’ve been dreaming about for half my life.
“It’s finally coming to fruition, and I’m so thankful for my journey from Bowling Green on.”
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Media Contact | Michael Bratton | mbratto@bgsu.edu | 419-372-6349
Updated: 01/16/2026 08:23AM