CL Cole is a former Division I athletic coach, and holds two interdisciplinary doctoral degrees. At USC, she specialized in sports management (work/organizations and marketing) and quantitative research, combining sport management, business, education, gender and women's studies, sociology, political science, and law. While at USC, she worked in marketing and promotions for one of the most elite university athletic departments in the United States. As the first female member of a Division I’s men’s water polo coaching staff, she worked with other high-profile national and international sports organizations and some of the most talented athletes in the world. Cole's doctoral degree from the University of Iowa is a self-designed interdisciplinary “sociology of culture” degree, grounded in communications, media studies, gender studies, cultural studies, and visual and interpretive methods. During a year-long sabbatical at the University of California, San Francisco, she supplemented her doctoral education by working in science and technology studies (STS). She brings this training, which crosses the humanities, arts, social sciences, sciences, and athletics, to her work today.

Cole is the co-editor of Women, Sport & Culture (with Susan Birrell) and Sport and Corporate Nationalisms (with Michael Silk and David Andrews). She is the editor of the Journal of Sport & Social Issues and serves on the editorial boards of Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies and the NYU book series Biopolitics: Medicine, Technoscience, & Health in the 21st Century. She is the recipient of one of the University of Illinois’ Critical Research Initiative Awards and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Teaching Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.