SAAC works to improve image, eperience
Closing the gap.
This is just one of the goals of the Utah State University Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
“As a whole we’d like to be more involved with all of the different committees [on campus],” SAAC president Jeff Crosbie said “There are a lot of club athletes and club teams out there that are working just as hard as we are. It would be nice to close that gap.”
Crosbie, a quarterback on the Aggie football team, said a lot of the athletes who used to play on varsity sports are now playing on club sports.
“I think we have some great club programs that just need a little more exposure,” he said.
Exposure is something the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is looking for as well.
According to its mission statement, the group’s goals is to enhance the total experience of student athletes by promoting opportunities, protecting student-athlete welfare and fostering a positive student-athlete image.
Crosbie said the committee mainly focuses on community service, averaging about one project a week.
“Pretty much you name it and we’ll do it,” he said.
And they have.
The committee has been involved in projects such as the annual community day where people are invited to mingle with the athletes, and visiting local schools to encourage staying in school and reading. SAAC also visits the retirement centers in the area in December to help spread cheer, decorate the buildings and sing Christmas songs, Crosbie said.
“[SAAC] is a great opportunity to do a lot of community service,” Crosbie said.
Most recently, SAAC has been looking for a project such as Habitat for Humanity to do, Crosbie said. He said the committee would like to get involved because they have so many hands and could do a lot of good work.
Mary Ellen Cloninger, senior associate director of Athletics and adviser over the committee, said USU’s SAAC has had a couple of its projects highlighted in the NCAA newsletter.
One of the biggest projects spotlighted for the newsletter was raising money with the local firefighters following the events of Sept. 11.
Articles of SAAC’s involvement are kept in a scrapbook, Cloninger said.
Along with community service, SAAC is also involved with student-athlete welfare.
Crosbie said they try to accommodate student athletes by helping to make college a whole experience.
“Right now we really try to help in the transition from being a high school student to becoming a college student,” he said. “Just dealing with the stress of managing time with classes, practice, meetings and all of those items.”
Athletes at USU are lucky because they do not have to deal with heavy welfare issues, Crosbie said.
Also a member of the National Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representing the Big West Conference, Crosbie attends a yearly meeting with 30 other SAAC presidents throughout the country.
Two members of SAAC also attend the BWC meeting twice a year, he said.
“A lot of different schools have different issues than what we have here,” Crosbie said.
Not only does Crosbie get to meet unique people around the country, he has met people of unique backgrounds in USU’s own SAAC.
“I really enjoy our committee,” he said. “We have great people here.”
Andreas Madersbacher, representing the men’s tennis team, and Sandra Reategui, representing the track team, are from Austria and Peru, respectively.
“We’ve just got a wide variety of people,” SAAC secretary Amber Tubb said. “It’s easier to work with people you get along with and everyone here is so laid back and easy going. We all have a common goal.”
Tubb also represents the Aggie track team.
Cloninger said the committee is a requirement for all Division I schools.
“Utah State had that type of a body functioning before it was a requirement,” Cloninger said. “We didn’t call it SAAC at the beginning but we had something going. Originally it was called a Captain’s Council.”
Cloninger said the athletics director at the time instituted the program with the captains from each team.
The new format is designed so people are representing their teams who want to, she said.
“We went to the coaches and said we wanted people who really wanted an active part in this,” Cloninger said. “We wanted someone who was interested in being the communicator.”
What the representative in turn does is relay messages the Athletics department has to the teams and vice versa.
At first, Cloninger said SAAC members would take on all of the service projects by themselves and had to be trained to go back and ask their teammates for help.
The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee is composed of 19 members, usually one from each university-sponsored sport, according to the group’s Web site, and meets twice a month.
“They are a very active group,” Cloninger said. “They aren’t just people who come and have a sub sandwich and a Coke that night. We keep telling them they can be the voice of change and I believe that.”
Athletes are responsible for finding replacements if they are unable to attend, Cloninger said.
She said members are allowed to represent their teams as long as they have eligibility remaining but are responsible for finding a replacement when their time is up.
As far as the future is concerned, Crosbie has a few ideas in mind.
“I’d just like to see this committee become more involved with the rest of the student body,” Crosbie said. “[I hope] people understand we don’t have to be those people who just go out and play our sport and keep to ourselves. People need to realize we are students also and we are part of the college atmosphere.
“We just want to be more involved.”