The NCAA News - News and Features

April 21, 1997

Image, careers focus of leadership program

More than 300 student-athletes will gather under the guidance of former student-athletes May 27-30 in Florida to discuss career preparation and the student-athlete image.

The two topics will be the focus of the NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference in Orlando at Disney's Wide World of Sports, where former student-athletes will act as role models to facilitate discussion.

The purpose of the conference is to expand on the leadership capabilities of student-athletes selected to participate, said Ronald J. Stratten, NCAA group executive director for education services.

"We want to celebrate the leadership capabilities of our student-athletes," Stratten said.

"We have significantly intelligent and articulate student-athletes. We want to give them an opportunity to have their own voice."

One of the Association's most visible student-athletes -- Bridget Niland of the State University of New York at Buffalo -- will participate in a panel discussion on communication networks. Niland, who is chair of the NCAA Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, will be joined by student-athletes Tony Coley of the University of Miami (Florida), Stormie Wells of the University of Northern Colorado and Mike Hammond of Centre College.

Other student-athletes will participate as role models for small group discussions. Two of the role models will be Carla Ainsworth and Laura Bush-Farina. Others will be announced.

Ainsworth, who was the Division III swimmer of the year in 1992, 1994 and 1995 while at Kenyon College, is a second-year student at the Washington University (Missouri) School of Medicine. She was a 1995 NCAA Today's Top Eight Award winner.

Bush-Farina is an assistant women's volleyball coach at Michigan State University. She was team captain and most valuable player in 1990 while a member of the University of Illinois, Champaign, volleyball team. She also works with summer volleyball camps at Michigan State and Illinois.

Michael Blanchard, a former football player at Louisiana State University, will introduce the first topic -- the Image of the Student-Athlete -- and then will serve as a role model.

The featured speaker on the topic of student-athlete image is Ed Lupberger, chairman and president of the Entergy Corporation, a New Orleans-based energy company that is helping to underwrite the conference along with Disney. Lupberger also is a member of the NCAA Foundation Board.

After Lupberger has introduced the topic, the student-athletes will break into six teams for smaller group discussions.

The discussion is intended to address such concepts as how student-athletes project an image, what they can do to improve that image, the impact of the student-athlete's image and solutions to problems with student-athlete image.

Steve Jones of the National Basketball Association's Portland Trailblazers also will speak, and the student-athletes then will gather for a discussion of their findings. A press conference involving selected student-athletes is planned to give the students an opportunity to report on what they have learned.

On the second day, the emphasis will be on career preparation. That discussion is intended to help prepare student-athletes for life after college and will address how an athlete can achieve a balance among athletics, academics and career preparation.

"The student-athletes need preparation for after athletics," Stratten said. "They are not all going to go pro."

ESPN commentator Robin Roberts and Reggie Williams, vice-president of Walt Disney World Sports, will address career preparation. Roberts was a standout on the women's basketball team at Southeastern Louisiana University before her graduation with a degree in communications.

Conference participants were selected from a pool of nominees from NCAA institutions with CHAMPS/Life Skills programs. Each of the 165 institutions with a life skills program was asked to nominate four student-athletes, from which the selection group identified two as participants, Stratten said.

To create a diverse pool, institutions were asked to nominate student-athletes from basketball, football, volleyball and two nonrevenue sports and to include minority and female students, he said.

The students will participate at no expense to them since Disney and Entergy are underwriting the project, Stratten said. It is being organized through a joint effort of the Foundation and the NCAA education services staff.

The conference is intended to be the first of several, he said. As the NCAA begins a new era with restructuring in August, student-athletes will have a larger role, he said. The conference is intended to help them prepare for a stronger leadership role.

"This is a large group of student-athletes funded by the NCAA to get together and talk about the issues," Stratten said. "A lot of the control of the conference will be with the student-athletes."

Outgoing members of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee will be on hand as mentors to help get discussion started, and to find out the needs of the student-athletes and how to support them, he said.

"This is an opportunity for student-athletes to have their own voice. We hope they take this opportunity. We hope they are responsible about it," Stratten said.

The student-athletes are expected to return to their campuses to share what they have learned with their fellow student-athletes.