This weekend 28 SoCon student-athletes and administrators traveled to the conference office in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the second annual Mid-Winter SAAC meeting. With SAAC representatives from each institution, the group spent three days participating on a service project, sharing best practices, and forming conference-wide initiatives.
Friday evening, the group came together for an overview of the weekend’s schedule. Commissioner John Iamarino addressed the group on a range of topics from the purpose of the Mid-Winter meeting to the SoCon Digital Network and the forthcoming NCAA Governance changes.
Saturday morning kicked off with a trip to the Miracle Hill Rescue Mission in Spartanburg. There, the student-athletes learned about the Mission’s history and goals, toured the facility, and interacted with residents. They then split into smaller work groups to tackle tasks like organizing and restocking the food pantry, cleaning the kitchen, equipment, cafeteria. Some participants even weathered reorganizing and cleaning out the walk-in freezer!
The rest of the afternoon was spent at the conference office, focused on institutional and National SAAC topics. The SoCon representative on the Division I National SAAC committee, Jenny Lauer, opened the discussions with an introduction about the role of National SAAC and initiatives that group has taken on. Mental health of student-athletes, the “It’s On Us” campaign, and increasing SAAC awareness were just a few of the discussion topics. In addition, the group had conversations about their institutional SAAC successes and struggles, sharing their best practices and suggested other useful tools and collaborations on campus.
On Sunday morning, the group reconvened to recap the previous day’s discussions and form conference-wide goals for this spring semester and for the future. The meeting concluded with one student-athlete from each institution then participated in filming the SoCon “It’s On Us” video, supporting the campaign to end sexual assault.
For more information please visit the SoCon SAAC page on SoConSports.com.