BOSTON -- If it's possible to have a taste of Orlando in Boston, participants in the first Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference November 8-10 did just that. This conference, the first of several planned regional divisional leadership conferences presented by the NCAA, was in many ways a scaled-down version of the NCAA Leadership Conference held annually in Orlando, Florida.

The 142 participants -- 97 student-athletes and 45 administrators and coaches representing 45 Division III institutions in the Northeast region -- experienced a compressed version of the national conference, coming to Boston late Friday afternoon and departing Sunday afternoon.

By all accounts, it was a successful first step for Division III, which became the first division to host its own leadership conference.

"The Division III Regional Leadership Conference brought together for the first time student-athletes, coaches and administrators to discuss the issues of concern to today's student-athletes," said Christopher Walker, chair of the Division III Management Council and faculty athletics representative at the University of Red-
lands. "It's pretty obvious that 97 student-athletes will be returning to their campuses energized as new leaders, empowered to address the issues they encounter on their own campuses."

The conference was the first funded by the Division III Initiatives Task Force, which has allocated $500,000, the second-largest allocation in the Division III initiative grant program behind the Strategic Alliance Matching Grant Program.

A total of four conferences, two per year, already have been approved for Division III, with the thought that a third year also will be supported. That cycle and regional rotation permits each institution in Division III with the opportunity to participate once every three years.

Same song, different tune

Similarities to the successful Orlando conference, which has been an annual all-divisions affair since 1997, were everywhere. The participants were broken into different teams for much of the conference, though teams took the names of different drums rather than different colors. There the student-athletes and administrators learned a leadership curriculum (also taught at the national conference) that is designed to give participants tools to become change agents on campus.

There were team-building activities and debriefings intended to help process the information learned, and there also were sessions on the purpose of student-athlete advisory committees (SAACs) and ways to make the best use of them.

Just as in the national conference, there were issues forums to discuss challenges facing student-athletes and administrators, such as sportsmanship, diversity, risky drinking, nutrition and the so-called "trust gap" that exists in some relationships between student-athletes and coaches or administrators.

"It's definitely a taste of the national conference," said Dewayne Barnes, former football student-athlete at Whittier College and vice-chair of the Division III SAAC. "It's nothing to take the place of the national conference because of the diversity of the divisions and the amount of time student-athletes spend in Orlando bonding with teammates and learning. But for someone whose school doesn't have a CHAMPS/Life Skills program (a requirement of attendance at the national conference), it's a great experience."

Al Bean, athletics director at the University of Southern Maine and a former Division III Management Council member who participated, agreed.

"I think it captures a piece of the national conference," Bean said. "Not the breadth of it, and not the active team-building parts, because you don't have a whole week, you just have the weekend."

Though the conference kept many of the time-tested successes of the national conference, the differences began with its divisional focus and regional location and continued to the attendees.

"We're trying to create a forum specific for Division III student-athletes, a place for Division III student-athletes to get information, dialogue and give feedback," Barnes said.

Unlike the national conference, student-athletes and administrators attended together, forming a school team that consisted of an administrator or coach and one, two or three student-athletes. (As part of an effort to increase the ethnic diversity of participants, institutions that brought an ethnic minority student-athlete could bring three.) In addition to having breakout sessions with their drum teams, participants also met with their school team, where they created a campus-focus action plan dealing with an issue of their own choosing.

There was a new session explaining Division III governance and the NCAA's role in athletics, as well as an administrators-only session that focused on involving student-athletes in the issues and decisions of the athletics department on campus. There also were sessions on time management and team-building through community service. Many of the topics, and a few of the sessions themselves, were planned by Division III SAAC members.

In short, it was tailor-made for the issues and challenges of Division III. Bean thought the tailoring fit just right.

"It was a great experience for everyone who came," he said.

As a member of the Management Council, he was one of the advisors to the Division III SAAC when the idea for a regional Division III student-athlete leadership conference began to gain momentum.

"Those who had experienced the national conference thought it was a great thing, but that not enough Division III student-athletes had the opportunity to attend," he said. "The national conference is a great opportunity, but some felt it was too diverse -- with all three divisions and a national focus -- that there needed to be more of a Division III opportunity to discuss issues that are relevant to Division III."

Bean also liked the administrator involvement. "I think it's really useful, particularly from a buy-in standpoint," he said. "The administrator is engaged in the action plan from the very beginning, and he or she is able to help the student-athletes implement it on campus."

Bean also thought the administrators did a good job of participating without quashing discussion among the student-athletes.

"As an administrator or a coach, you have a different set of life experiences than the students," he said. "You want to participate, but not to the point that you stifle discussion or prevent the students from looking for ways to solve a problem that perhaps you've solved before. I think most of us let the dialogue be led by the students so that they would benefit from that. I think there's a general feeling that everybody is participating together, there's not a hierarchy, and I think that's how it should work."

Leaders with potential

Like the national conference, this event also keyed in on ways participants could expand their leadership skills, and it included presentations by those known for their own leadership

NCAA President Cedric W. Dempsey welcomed the participants and offered his thoughts on effective leaders. Dempsey noted that, perhaps like many of the student-athletes at the conference, he had not thought of himself as a leader until one of his mentors, his basketball coach at Albion College, had pointed it out to him.

"He saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. If it hadn't been for him, I'm sure I would not be standing before you today," he said. "And that's why all of you are here. Someone sees that you can be a leader. Someone sees something in you that you probably don't see in yourself."

Dempsey also encouraged the attendees to embrace their new role as leaders, on their teams and on their campuses.

"To be a leader, you need to step forth and not be afraid to fail," Dempsey said.

The keynote speaker, John DiBiaggio, president emeritus of Tufts University, encouraged the participants to take their leadership skills in athletics and apply them to their lives.

"You participate in sports because you love to do so, but I see athletics teaching you some very important life lessons," he said. "Athletics teaches very critical leadership skills because you have to be a leader to be a participant. The reality is that everybody on the team has to participate for a team to be successful."

DiBiaggio also told the attendees to learn from successful leaders in all walks of life.

"We all have certain strengths and certain weaknesses," he said. "The difference is that the successful people know their weaknesses and compensate for them. Surround yourself with people who can compensate for your weaknesses, and always set goals. When you set goals, they have to be realistic and achievable, but you also have to have resources devoted to meeting those goals. Otherwise, it's just pie in the sky.

"In the final analysis, leadership is making a difference. You have acquired the skills to do so, and you're doing it in the healthiest environment possible -- Division III athletics."

Nora Sullivan, a sophomore swimming and diving student-athlete from Clark University, got the message.

"I learned a lot of interesting things about leadership this weekend," she said. "Since I'm only a sophomore, I haven't really thought of myself as a leader. But I learned here that even if I'm not the captain, I'm still a leader. When it comes to sportsmanship, team building -- all of those things are more my responsibility than I thought."

Go West, Division III

The next Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference will be for Division III's West region in Minneapolis from January 31 through February 4.

Though Minneapolis might seem like a strange location for a conference serving the Western part of the nation, the conference is well-positioned considering the large number of Division III schools clustered in Wisconsin and Minnesota and the relative few institutions located west of there. California has 15 Division III institutions, but the states surrounding it have few or no Division III schools.

Karen L. Johnson, the faculty athletics representative and director of institutional research at Alfred University, hopes that many Division III institutions in the region will take advantage of the upcoming conference in Minneapolis. She points to the unique administrator-student teams as participants as one of many reasons to attend. "I think we helped each other learn," she said. Johnson, a member of the Division III Management Council, also was a drum-team facilitator for the first time.

All of the facilitators were either Division III administrators or NCAA staff, and all the Division III administrators also will be facilitators at the Minneapolis conference.

"I think that offers Division III administrators yet another opportunity (associated with the conference). I truly appreciated the opportunity to interact with the student-athletes on the level we did," Johnson said.

Johnson also pointed out that the conference's accessibility and location made it possible for student-athletes and administrators to attend from schools that perhaps have not been as focused on student-athlete involvement in the athletics department.

"There are students here whose institutions don't even have campus SAACs and who were not at all aware that there was a national SAAC," she said. "That's really disappointing, but all of (the students without SAACs) said they would go back and work diligently on creating and enhancing their SAAC. Division III may see some immediate benefits in that way."

Bean also encourages more Division III administrators to attend both the regional conference and the national one. Bean has attended the national conference himself, and he's also seen the changes the national conference has brought to student-athletes and even his own campus.

"The student-athletes I've had participate in the national conference in the past clearly have been affected by it and it has made a definite change in them," Bean said. "They return to campus fired up, and we've made some changes on our campus based on their ideas and their plans. I think we'll see the same effect, to a lesser degree, coming out of these regional conferences. It's not exactly like the national conference. But I think we get a piece of it that's definitely worth having and worth spreading to as many people as possible. "

Word of conference benefit should spread

Perhaps the only downside to the inaugural Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference was the number of institutions not represented.

Of the 76 Division III institutions in the Northeast region, only 45 sent representatives, even though the NCAA funded travel, lodging, meals and associated conference costs. And the 45 institutions sent a total of only 97 student-athletes, meaning only seven institutions sent the maximum of three student-athletes, an option available to those institutions that sent one ethnic minority student-athlete.

Those figures mean that 76 institutions could have sent one administrator each, along with three student-athletes each, or 228 student-athletes, with the total participants at 304 rather than 142.

Sometimes it takes a while for people to realize that an opportunity is available, said Del Malloy, athletics director at Salve Regina University. Malloy was a participant at the conference in Boston, and he also brought the maximum number of student-athletes. It was an opportunity that Malloy appreciated so much that he plans to tell his colleagues about the experience and recommend that they attend.

"I feel sorry for the schools in our region that failed to take advantage of this incredible opportunity," he said. "I thought the conference was an excellent opportunity for student-athletes, coaches and administrators to come together and discuss important topics and develop leadership potential. I will do my part to encourage fuller participation when the conference rotates back to our region."

In the meantime, Malloy would encourage any Division III institution to participate. "The conference (in Boston) was, in a word, outstanding. I thought it offered tremendous benefits to administrators, coaches and student-athletes."

-- Kay Hawes

Participating institutions

NCAA members schools that sent participants to the Division III Student-Athlete Regional Leadership Conference: