Dallas City Wire

ACU PARTNERS WITH TEXAS RANGERS TO OFFER RANGERSU COURSES TO PLAYERS

On Thursday, at a joint press conference at Globe Life Field, Abilene Christian University and the Texas Rangers officially announced “Rangers U Powered by ACU” — a program that allows players and coaches to earn academic credit by taking online courses taught by ACU faculty and staff in both English and Spanish.

“It really started more on a business partnership side, more of a sponsorship opportunity for the university,” said Ben Baroody, Rangers director of leadership, development and mental performance. “I think we both just tried to be mutually opportunistic and say, ‘this can be more than just outfield field signage. This can be something we can build out for our players and with my vision for opportunities for our staff and players.’”

Baroody and other Rangers management team members collaborated with Stephen Johnson, chief administrative officer for ACU Dallas, to jointly develop a set of custom courses. ACU’s expertise in online learning enabled the delivery of these courses to be flexible and accessible for players and staff, regardless of their location. The quick timeline on which these courses were developed reflects the strength of ACU’s online offerings, which consistently rank as one of America’s top online colleges. 

RangersU consists of two Player Pathway blocks of fully online seven-week courses. Player Pathway Block 1 courses included leadership development and mental performance and ran from October to December of 2022. Player Pathway Block 2 is running now and includes courses on the history of baseball and multicultural communication. Each course is worth three hours of academic credit. 

Original source can be found here