Travis Tygart

Senior Managing Director and General Counsel,
United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA)

Travis T. Tygart is the Senior Managing Director, General Counsel of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA). USADA is the independent, nongovernmental anti-doping agency for Olympic sports in the U.S. and is dedicated to protecting the integrity of competition and the rights of clean athletes to participate in drug free competition.

Travis is responsible for all legal and public relations matters of USADA including the handling of alleged doping offenses in arbitration before the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). Travis was responsible for USADA’s investigation into the BALCO doping conspiracy involving numerous elite-level international athletes and the designer steroid, THG. Travis has arbitrated over thirty cases before the AAA or CAS including the cases of Tim Montgomery, Michelle Collins and Chryste Gaines which confirmed sport’s ability to establish a doping violation on evidence other than a positive drug test.

Travis was involved with drafting the USADA Protocol for Olympic Movement Testing and the World Anti-Doping Agency’s Code. Travis served as the legal expert for the WADA Independent Observer Team at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England and was a USADA representative at the 2003 World Conference on Doping in Sport in Copenhagen, Denmark. Travis has been a participant at the Council of Europe, the Association of National Anti-Doping Agencies and was a presenter at the WADA OOC Symposium in October 2003. Travis has been an expert presenter on anti-doping topics in the United States and internationally at events such as “Play the Game 2005” conference in Denmark and “Together We Can Win” symposium in Portugal. In 2006, Travis was an invited guest lecturer to the “Conference for the Fight against Trafficking of Doping Substances” hosted by the Council of Europe and the French Minister of Sport held in Paris, France.

Prior to joining USADA, Travis was an associate in the sports law practice group at Holme Roberts and Owen, LLP. While at HRO, Travis worked on various matters for sport entities and individual athletes including the United States Olympic Committee, USA Basketball, USA Swimming, USA Volleyball, the Pro Rodeo Cowboys’ Association and the Mountain West Conference.

Travis has been interviewed by a number of international media outlets including The New York Times, The LA Times, ESPN, Outside the Lines, Nightline, NBC, USA Today, National Public Radio, the BBC, CNN, AP, Reuters, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post, The Denver Post, and The Congressional Quarterly. Travis has been an invited speaker on anti-doping and drug testing topics by the Harvard Law School, Stanford University, the University of Colorado School of Law, Valparaiso University School of Law, the University of Miami School of Law, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, Saint Louis University Law School, the Southern Methodist University School of Law, the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the Sports Lawyers’ Association and the National Sports Law Institute.

Travis grew up in Jacksonville, Florida and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a BA in Philosophy and earned his JD from Southern Methodist University graduating Order of the Coif. Travis has published law review articles addressing anti-doping issues, the antitrust implications for professional sports and Title IX’s impact on high school athletics.

Travis is married to his wife, Nichole, and they have a 4 year old daughter, Mackie Tate, and a 2 year old son, JT.