East Coast Conference Commissioner Bob Dranoff said his league’s athletics directors and conference officers were looking for an answer to the question, “What else can we do to help student-athletes?”

The conference stages high-level championships and offers programming at the institutional and league level to enhance student-athletes’ athletics experiences, but Dranoff said administrators nonetheless had a feeling that something was missing.

What they created to fill the gap was a two-day experience for about four dozen ECC student-athletes at the NYIT campus for the ECC’s first “Experience in Community and Character” (ECC) leadership workshop.

The event focused on camaraderie and character development. Local professionals, including Bill Martinov, executive dean for student services and leadership at Mercy College; Indera Rampal-Harrod, director of employee relations at American Express; and Jerry Mackey, vice president at Smith Barney, hosted seminars on leadership, fiscal management and career preparation.

Student-athletes also pitched in with a community clean-up, collecting more than 50 bags of garbage from the streets near the train station in Central Islip. And when they weren’t thinking or working, they were bonding over bowling, rock band competitions and open gym time.

“The feeling among our ADs and conference people in planning this was, ‘What else can we do?’ ” Dranoff said. “These are such difficult times for college students, including those who make up our student-athlete population. Young people in college need as many opportunities as we can provide to give them tools to succeed in life, whether that is how to handle themselves in new situations, diverse situations, or how to find answers when it comes to dealing with personal financial challenges.”

As hungry as student-athletes are to learn those life skills, Dranoff said ECC athletics directors and other campus administrators are motivated to teach them.

“If we can bring some of these students together and help them grow, then we’re meeting our responsibilities a little more as athletics administrators. So that’s what this event was about,” he said.

Student-athletes loved it.

“It was great to meet other student-athletes within our conference and get to know them on a deeper level – not just who they are on the track, field, or court, but as individuals,” said Chelsea Klinger from St. Thomas Aquinas.

Doug Leresche of Queens (New York) said, “It was an effective method of leadership development with worthwhile advice for our futures.”

Programming included everything from etiquette and diversity to career development and money management. It was a lot jammed into two days, Dranoff said, but he believes the inaugural event gave ECC officials an idea of how to even improve the event – perhaps for larger audiences through a train-the-trainer approach.

“We may not reach every single student-athlete, but if we can give the SAAC members this kind of information that they can bring back to their campuses, then it’s a start,” Dranoff said.

The biggest takeaway for the ECC commissioner?

“The community-service activity showed how resilient and positive college students are and how much they want to learn and be successful,” Dranoff said. “Almost all of the participants at our event really took advantage of what was out there for them – making the connections, listening, being enthusiastic – which is hard to do when you’re dropped out of a van to pick up trash along a fence line when it’s hot outside. But there wasn’t a complaint from the whole weekend.”

− ECC Director of Media Relations Michelle Perry contributed to this story.