This article was originally published in the Spring 2020 edition of Centrepiece.

Iditarod. The name conjures images like no other sporting event: blinding white terrain, icicles knotting ruddy-faced mushers’ eyebrows, silver-eyed dogs lunging frantically into a vast unknown.

Basically, crazy people charging headlong into challenging horizons. The perfect place for a Centre grad, right?

The word is Ingalik Indian for “distant place.” The Iditarod race across Alaska couldn’t be much farther from where Louisville native Rob Urbach ’85 began his career in sports business management. After earning a Centre degree in psychobiology—and competing as a nationally recognized tennis, swimming, and cross-country athlete who eventually created the Centre Triathlon—he moved to Philadelphia to earn an M.B.A. at the Wharton School of Business.