When I got asked by Dr. Pete Crabb at the beginning of the semester if I wanted to be the SAAC chair for NNU this year, I was honored, but at the same time, asking myself what I had to do, does it fit with my soccer schedule and my work schedule and am I even ready for something like that?

About eight months later, I am more than happy to have accepted that role. After being a SAAC member for my junior year, being the Chair helped me grow a lot in my senior year. Many of you might ask what actually is SAAC? What does it stand for? And what do we even do?

SAAC stands for Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and each of NNU´s sports is represented by two members. We meet once a month to go over the latest news in our athletic department, vote on new NCAA or GNAC proposals, and talk about projects we as a group want to do. We see ourselves as the voice of our teams and all the Student-Athletes at NNU.

Being nominated by our Faculty Representative to the NNU Athletics Department, Dr. Pete Crabb, I was given an excellent opportunity to take on the challenge to participate 2022 NCAA Division II SAAC Super Region Convention in California that took place April 8-10, 2022. The program started at 3 pm on Friday with Wiley Cain, the Division II NCAA SAAC chair giving an introduction to what SAAC is and what it does at a conference and on a national level was helpful to all the participants. The following two guest speakers, Bubba Baroniel and Ashley Beaton, two former Division II athletes who work at Nova Southeastern and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, then shared with us how impactful Student-Athletes' voices can and also should be. The SAAC representatives impact new rules, new structures, et cetera within the NCAA. Before dinner, the conferences got together in separate rooms for the first time and planned their first project. The first project we agreed on and presented on Sunday morning was how the GNAC and each institution could support the LGBTQ community on campus. A topic that is important to create awareness for and support everywhere. The night ended with a Student-Athlete Social Event with good music and excellent food.

After breakfast on Saturday morning, Ivy Watts, a former Division II athlete at the University of New Haven, came and talked to us about her experience with Mental Health, a topic that is not only sensitive to a lot of Student-Athletes but also to me since I struggled with it last semester. Ivy shared a lot about her struggles, and even when she was very successful, she dealt with her struggles.

Jonathan Orr, a former Athlete at the University of Wisconsin who played for two years in the NFL, shared his story about how challenging the transition can be from being a Student-Athlete to a job without the sport. He is also the executive director of Athlete Transition Services, a company that helps Student-Athletes transition to the work life after graduating.

In the afternoon, our next project planning session within our conference started, and our focus this time was mental health. I shared some of our plans that SAAC will work on in the next week, including a mental health interview video with Student-Athletes that we will use to share stories and create more awareness for mental health and what comes with it.

The night concluded with Curtis Hill, a diversity expert, inclusion equity coach, and author who shared his stories about inequality experiences with how unconscious bias works. It was a very healthy and realistic approach, I thought, from Curtis, who was very positive and had great jokes that made everybody in the room laugh multiple times. Sunday, the last day of the convention, was there to come together one more time within our conference and plan our final presentation focused on our project towards the LGBTQ community and how we can support mental health in our conference and on our campuses.

Three members of the GNAC that we as a group selected did a fantastic job presenting our ideas to all the other conferences and NCAA members.

The last part of the convention was keynote speaker Justin Patton who is a leadership presence expert and author. His powerful, funny, and confident speech helped all of us gain some skills and ideas about how leadership and public speaking can be put into perfection.

Wiley Cain sent us off with some closing remarks, and back to Nampa, which we arrived at Monday morning because the pilot did not show up to his flight on Sunday night.

What an experience that was and how many new friends I made in these three days. I learned a lot about leadership and how vital the community between Student-Athletes and non-Student-Athletes is on campus, and so many more things. I am excited to see how our last project that will be concluded next week will turn out, but all I can say is that when I leave NNU in a month and graduate, I will be thankful for every single Student-Athlete that I got to work with over my four years here as well as every single Faculty member that I met in my four years.

I´m sure NNU SAAC will grow even more, and the people who represent their teams over the next years will impact NNU´s campus, the conference, and the NCAA.