Win-Win Situation: Alumnus Nick Monzi Teaches STEM Through Sports

Nick Monzi ’11, always knew he wanted to have a career in the sports industry. Just how he achieved that was something he didn’t foresee.

In 2013, Monzi cofounded Learn Fresh, a nonprofit that uses sports-related games to teach students science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. Learn Fresh’s flagship program, NBA Math Hoops, provides a community program, board game, mobile app, and classroom curriculum to teach math skills through the lens of basketball. Today, Learn Fresh offers programs in partnership with pro leagues and teams across the National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League Soccer, in classrooms and community centers in all 50 states and beyond, reaching more than 1.4 million students.

But when Monzi was a student in the Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises (EEE) Department at the Syracuse University’s Whitman School, he pictured a more traditional career in the sports industry.  

“When I went to Syracuse, I didn’t think I was going to be working at the intersection of sports and education,” Monzi says. “I was thinking that I would be working more in the industry of sport, but I’ve always viewed education as one of the most powerful tools to advance the world and to help build opportunity for future generations, and leveraging sport as a vehicle to do that, which has been an interest area of mine for decades, is something that’s really special. It’s all worked out in the end.”

From Sports to STEM

Growing up, Monzi’s mother drilled into him how important education was, a lesson he took to heart. In the Whitman School, one of his favorite experiences was his capstone course with professor and three-time honoree on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies John Torrens. He also dove into opportunities across the university, like working for the athletic department. After graduating from Syracuse, he also earned a master’s of education from Harvard University and a master’s of business administration from the University of Chicago.

As a student, Monzi was drawn to arts and music education, but he says Learn Fresh focuses on STEM as a building block to various career paths. “Math education, I think, is incredibly important from a financial literacy perspective,” he notes. “When you think about giving families, students—you know, future adults—the skills that they need to be able to set their families up for success, and set their personal financial lives up for success, a lot of the root of that is math and math education.”

The Learn Fresh programs run sports-themed events where students play the organization’s STEM games through a tournament bracket. Learn Fresh also teams up with professional sports leagues to give students VIP experiences. One of Monzi’s favorite memories was bringing an NBA Math Hoops tournament winner from San Antonio to a Spurs matchup with the Indiana Pacers that took place in Paris and coincided with an international Learn Fresh tournament. “She got to attend and participate in the tournament that we hosted in the city. She got to go to the game in Paris, and then spent a week exploring the city,” says Monzi. “To be able to take a student from her middle school classroom in San Antonio, all the way through to [a tournament in] New York and then to Paris was really, really special.”

When asked who his favorite player is, Monzi is diplomatic. He praises players including Spurs forward Harrison Barnes, Cincinnati Reds outfielder Will Benson, four-time NBA champion Klay Thompson, Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Corbin Carroll, and New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso for their support for Learn Fresh and being “awesome people.”

Rooting for Team Whitman

As a nonprofit leader, Monzi understands how important it is to build long-term relationships with supporters. He says, “In education, there’s always more work to do. There are always more students to reach, and there are never quite enough resources to reach them all, and so we’re constantly building our relationships with teams, philanthropy, so on and so forth, to make sure that we’re resourced to continue to scale the organization.”

That’s one of the reasons Monzi has also supported the Whitman School financially. He began by giving to entrepreneurship initiatives like the EEE Department and the Panasci Business Plan Competition. When he learned of the Whitman Leadership Circle, he extended his pledge to multi-year support.

With his dual interests in sports and education, and love of all things Orange, it may have been inevitable that Monzi would end up back in a Syracuse classroom. In the fall of 2025, he began teaching a new course called Innovative Sport Ventures through the David B. Falk College of Sport. According to Monzi, the class teaches students the practical aspects of building a sports-related business. He also has volunteered as a judge for the Whitman capstone course presentations that once inspired his entrepreneurial spark.

In his philanthropy and engagement with Syracuse, Monzi wants to bring the universal enthusiasm of sports fans to the task of driving educational excellence. Along with his fellow alumni, he hopes to bring attention to Whitman and other schools and help the entrepreneurs of the future. By any calculation, that’s a win.

By Suzi Morales