"It hadn't hit me at the end. Then one of the Team USA coaches said, 'You just won. Like, you're a world champion. You can smile.'"
Shea Scarborough has no shortage of dedication: to her majors in Marketing and Sports Administration; to her community in the inaugural cohort of the Hoffman Honors Scholars (HHS) program, and her time as an ambassador for both HHS and the Lindner College of Business; to her involvement in the University Honors Program (UHP) and Lindner Business Honors-PLUS; and to martial arts, including Sanda, which she's trained in since her freshman year of high school. Scarborough's martial-arts experience is not limited to a single discipline: she competed in Tae Kwon Do from a young age, and wrestled for her high school's team.
In the championship program, Scarborough's victory is listed under Lei Tai: a competition form in which combatants spar, using Sanda techniques, on a two-foot raised platform, instead of the ground-level mats that are standard in most other martial arts. Sanda, a full-contact sport which developed from longstanding Chinese martial arts traditions, incorporates kicks, punches, and grappling in a fast-paced style that Scarborough describes as similar to MMA. While it is most popular in Asia and Europe, Sanda is a fast-growing sport in the Americas as well; Scarborough got started in the sport after Vincent Meng, a former Tae Kwon Do teammate, recruited her for the brand-new team he was establishing at Meng's Martial Arts studio in Huber Heights, OH.
Fitting international competitions into an already-busy schedule made for an intensive fall semester; "I doubled the amount of fights that I've had in my lifetime in just this single year," Scarborough recalls.
"I want to work in sports-surprise, surprise," Scarborough says. She cites her experience in martial arts, as well as her longstanding interest in Cincinnati's professional sports teams in football, baseball, soccer, and hockey, adding that "I didn't really process until my senior year of high school that people actually work in sports, that it's a career pathway." After graduation, she hopes to launch into a career on the corporate side of professional sports, in marketing. For now, she's staying focused on the search for upcoming co-op and internship opportunities that can help her build toward that goal. She's also excited to attend the full slate of HHS events in Spring 2026, and to expand her involvement with the Lindner Ambassadors.
And, as for her future in competitive martial arts? Scarborough is already looking ahead to the 2026 season: following her participation in Team USA this year, she's pre-qualified for the next round of international competitions, and hopes to attend the Pan-American Championships in Argentina. Wherever the season takes her, she'll show up with determination, excellence, and Bearcat pride.
Featured image at top: Shea during a fight. Photo/provided.
