National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2010

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Feb 1, 2010 8:55:01 AM

A Peach Belt Conference seminar featuring NCAA Senior Vice President for Championships Joni Comstock urged young women to pursue careers in intercollegiate athletics.

"We need tremendous people, male and female, in leadership roles in the near future," Comstock said in her keynote address at the Peach Belt's second annual Women in Athletics seminar January 28 at Augusta State.

The seminar provides female student-athletes interested in pursuing a career in collegiate athletics the opportunity to interact with a range of professional women in sports.

Representatives from all 13 Peach Belt member institutions attended a morning panel discussion and afternoon keynote address from Comstock, who before taking the championships position at the NCAA national office three years ago oversaw athletics departments at two Division I institutions.

"We're at a point where we've lost a number of women who entered the field 10 or 20 years ago. As young female student-athletes go through our high school and college programs, if they don't see a lot of women in leadership roles, they don't see a career in athletics as an option. So we have to talk it up – we have to sell it," Comstock said.

The panel discussion featured Germaine McAuley, athletics director at Spelman College; Taylor Mott, head women's volleyball coach at Flagler; women's basketball official Kristi Weed; Andrea Tyndall, assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of South Carolina; Cheryl Watts, game operations manager at Georgia Tech; and Tammy Stout, executive director of the Augusta Sports Council.

"I'm very interested in a career in college athletics," said Flagler soccer student-athlete Kincaid Schmidt, a seminar attendee who also serves as president of Flagler's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. "It's an opportunity for me to see what I can do with my educational background and how I can apply that to a future in athletics. There are more positive roads for students like me that women in the past have paved for us."

Comstock praised the Peach Belt for an event "to encourage young women to step up to take a leadership role in higher education and the future of intercollegiate athletics."

"The biggest thing for me," Schmidt said, "is the enthusiasm these women have for their positions. As busy as they are and as hard as they work, they seem really excited and enthusiastic about what they are doing."