234 | Chapter 16 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jasper Machiel Antoine van Houten was born in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, on the 17th of July 1986, but raised in the nearby village of Wijchen. During his youth, he played tennis, football, and guitar. Jasper also grew into a passion for cycling, by watching (his dad watch) the Tour de France and riding countless “rondjes om de huizen” (laps around the block) with the neighbourhood kids. Together with his father and greatly supported by his mother, he had finished the annual Nijmegen Four Days of Cycling 12 times at the age of 16. At that age, nevertheless, he traded his bicycle for a moped and had switched from practising club sports to working-out at a fitness centre for the second part of high school (pre-university education) at the Maaswaal College. In 2004, Jasper started studying Sport, Health and Management at the HAN University of Applied Sciences and moved out to live on his own in Nijmegen not long after that. He subscribed as a member of the Radboud Sports Centre, continued working-out there, started playing squash, and picked up tennis at the student tennis association SLOW. He still enjoyed practising sport but relished the student (night) life together with his friends and housemates even more. Sport remained an important part of his life, but now more as part of his educational and professional career. In 2007, for his internship at the HAN School of Sport and Exercise, Jasper founded the sport consultancy and research bureau Transferpunt Sport, together with a team of fellow students and two senior consultants. As a spin-off, he chaired the tennis association of omnisport club Quick 1888 between 2008 and 2011. After his internship he stayed at the HAN School of Sport and Exercise and works here to this day. First as consultant and internship supervisor at the Transferpunt Sport, and since 2011 also as lecturer and researcher. Jasper developed an interest in sociology while working on his bachelor thesis at the HAN, investigating social and creative capital within sport clubs. After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in health (2008), he started studying Sociology at the Radboud University and obtained both a Bachelor’s (2010) and Master’s
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