It’s the big game. The institution that you have a vested partnership in has finally conquered their demons and defeated their chief rival for the first time in over a decade.
To celebrate, the head coach of the team decides to join parents, alumni and student athletes at a bar to celebrate the historic victory.
Seems harmless enough to the casual thought process, but there are rules in the NCAA on certain issues, meaning that situations such as these might not be fruitful for all parties to be involved.
This is noted to show just what a student-athlete goes through almost daily during his or her time with the school of their choice.
Situational ethics may be commonplace in our daily lives, but student athletes have to touch on issues that would never cross people outside of their world’s mind.
Things are no different for student athletes in the Southern Conference, which is why the league undertook an initiative to make sure that they equipped their student athletes with a leadership-training program.
The program became an integral part of the conference’s plan in 1995. Dubbed the Student-Athlete Leadership Institute or SALI to those involved.
At the time, no other league in the southeast offered such a program.
The league had no model to follow, but still created a unique educational program to readily align its student athletes for success during their time in college and hopefully in the future once their playing days were over.
The innovative program has naturally evolved over the years, but the same reasoning for kick-starting the program in the first place has still remained the same, and thankfully the vital program has stood the test of time, as evidenced by the fact that SALI celebrated its 10th anniversary, July 22-24, 2005.
Between the league administration, the student athletes and faculty from conference schools, 48 people attended the event in 2005. Broken down further, that means each SoCon institution sends 3-4 student-athletes plus an administrator.
The student athletes from each university are brought to this intensive, culturally enriching program in an effort to afford them the opportunity to become campus leaders as well as role models.
Southern Conference senior associate commissioner Geoff Cabe sees SALI as a way to strengthen bonds between everyone involved in athletics in the conference, noting the institute “has readily helped the Southern Conference to strengthen relationships among its member institutions.”
The student athletes brought into the SALI fold are not always necessarily those that have the highest profile at their school or even on their team. The leadership group involved with ensuring the success of the program decided long ago that the best thing to do was to bring in those athletes that have the greatest inherent desire to learn.
Those in attendance last year at SALI, which was held in Black Mountain, N.C., were guided through a leadership institute program that teaches them about day-to-day issues that student athletes in the conference have to deal with. They were also treated to a chat with Cabe where they were able to have their voice heard and ask the questions that they have always wanted to ask.
Southern Conference Associate Commissioner Sue Arakas feels that the conference’s ability to intermingle the hierarchy with the student-athlete is one of the main reasons that the conference has been so extremely successful in this particular endeavor.
“We try to always keep our ear to the ground,” remarks Arakas. “We take input from the student athletes to try to stay as proactive to situations as plausible. I think it helps to break down the barriers between the student athletes and those involved with the conference.”
One of the real pluses to the continued success of SALI is the fact that the same facilitators have presided over the leadership institute all 10 years. Marty Harding and Kevin Ringhofer of Harding and Associates, Inc. give the student athletes involved in the program a chance to hear things from a personal, non-threatening third party.
It should be noted that while the learning that takes place over the weekend is geared toward fun, there is also fun undertaken through outdoor activities in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
In fact, during the afternoon on the Saturday of the event, those involved in the conference participate in an outdoor challenge ? basically a ropes course - on what is called the Alpine Tower, while others embark on a two-mile hike up Black Mountain.
The greatest thrill for those involved with the output of the conference may just be seeing relationships fostered and seeing enemies on the field become friends.
Arakas gave a breakdown of one instance that fully gave meaning to why the leadership institute is an annual part of what the Southern Conference does.
The story goes that one Georgia Southern football lineman and one Appalachian State lineman were assigned to room together ? which, by the way, is something that is normally done to help further relationships between schools and athletes ? and did not see the merit in it; almost casually shrugging off each other from the moment they met.
As time went on though they kept realizing that they had a great deal in common. So, slowly but surely the student athletes began to acknowledge each other.
By the end of the weekend they were best friends.
According to Arakas, that is not even the most stirring part of the story. The real story comes much later during the next football season shortly after the Mountaineers upset the Eagles in a hotly contested SoCon football game.
Despite the fact that they had been in the trenches against each other all game long as one was an offensive lineman and the other a defensive linemen, the players were still talking to each other after the game at the team buses, articulating unknowingly exactly what the Southern Conference Student-Athlete Leadership Institute is all about.