Written by Russell Dorn
Media Relations Assistant
Southern Conference
The summertime, a lazy time for most college students, is quite the opposite for a typical college student-athlete. Their summers can vary from summer league games for a baseball player, to working at school camps, to obtaining an internship with a local company that fits with ones career goals.
However, for one weekend in July, a group of Southern Conference student-athletes put all these items on the backburner as they packed up their suitcases for a weekend at the SoCon sponsored event, the Student-Athlete Leadership Institute, or SALI, that took place at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, N.C.
Among the 48 participants, there were 27 student-athletes, 14 school administrators, five SoCon staff members and two facilitators including a former Ohio State basketball player, last year’s Freshman of the Year in volleyball, a 2007 all-SoCon Tournament Team baseball player, a member of three Furman SoCon basketball championships during the 1970’s and a 2008 preseason All-American punter.
The SALI experience, the brainchild of former SoCon Commissioner Wright Waters, began in 1996 and has been organized for nearly a decade by Associate Commissioner Sue Arakas. It has thrived for 13 years by bringing together student-athletes from all of the conference schools and helping them improve their leadership skills in order to use their positions on campus to influence others to make positive choices.
Putting aside conference rivalries, the student-athletes were able to enjoy getting to know each other in a variety of activities and challenges that brought out their competitive characteristics as well as their inner child. Highlights of the weekend included a ropes course which tested even the most agile and strong athletes both physically and mentally and a trip to a local miniature golf course for a night of fun competition.
The workshop sessions were centered around preparing the student-athletes to be better leaders on campus, both with their teammates and with the general campus population. Topics covered during the daily class time included identifying personal leadership qualities, promoting healthy choices, issues that affect teams, how to serve as a role model, communication skills and how to develop and enhance campus student-athlete advisory councils.
The student-athlete participants will serve as members of the 2008-09 SoCon SAAC. Their primary role as SAAC members is to be a liaison between the conference, athletics administration and other student-athletes. In this capacity, they will be the voice of their teammates on issues that concern them within the conference and the NCAA.
Furman senior women’s soccer player Kate Myatt was able to take a lot from this weekend.
“I really enjoyed being able to talk with other athletes about issues on campus and then share ideas,” said Myatt. “We were able to learn a lot from each other. Hopefully I will be able to take the ideas back to campus and implement them there.”
Kyle Nichols, a senior baseball player from new conference member, Samford University, was glad to have participated in his first SoCon event.
“I really enjoyed everything about this weekend,” said Nichols. “I was able to meet a lot of people and learned a lot of things in class as well as outside of class. I will be looking forward to competing against these people.”
The facilitators leading the conference were Dr. Kevin Ringhofer and Ms. Marty Harding. Ringhofer is a national trainer and consultant specializing in prevention and health promotion. He and Ms. Harding co-authored the book Coaches Guide to Drugs and Sport. Harding is also a national trainer and consultant in prevention and health promotion for numerous foundations and has conducted the SALI conference since its inception.
At conference end, Harding felt good about the group’s effort.
“This group was really high energy,” said Harding. “There was never any dead time and they were a pleasure to work with.”
By the end of the weekend, the group of student-athletes had formed a bond that had transcended the playing field on which they will meet on over the next nine months. With talks of a SALI reunion sometime in the future and keeping in touch through Facebook, the group packed up their suitcases and set off back to their respective campuses to continue their less than typical student-athlete summers, fortified with leadership skills that will help them succeed in the future.