Wittenberg Student-Athletes Participate In NCAA Leadership Conference

Jeff Capella

Springfield, Ohio — Wittenberg University volleyball standout Erin Slattery, class of 2010 from Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and men's lacrosse standout Jeff Capella, class of 2010 from Columbus, Ohio, did some serious work in one of the least serious places in the world.

Slattery and Capella, members of Wittenberg's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), attended the 12th annual National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Student-Athlete Development Conference May 25-29 at the Yacht Club, a Walt Disney Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. It is the seventh straight year that Wittenberg has been represented at the conference.

In 2008, the popular conference has been split into two sessions, opening opportunities for approximately 700 student-athletes to participate, as opposed to the traditional number of 350. Capella attended the first session and Slattery the second.

"I expected to learn a lot about SAAC, but I learned a lot about myself and what it takes to be an effective leader," Slattery said. "The NCAA really put on a great program, and everyone was open-minded, which led to some great discussions about anything and everything. I was able to make some really great friends from all over the country."

Slattery is a two-year letterwinner for the perennial powerhouse Tiger volleyball program. The 2006 North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) Newcomer of the Year, Slattery has split the setting duties in each of her first two years in the Red & White. Still, she has accumulated more than 2,000 career assists while helping the Tigers to one NCAC regular season title and one NCAC Tournament crown in the last two years. In addition, Wittenberg has reached the NCAA Division III Tournament semifinals each of the last two years and finished the year ranked in the top four nationally.

Capella is a two-year letterwinner for the up-and-coming Tiger men's lacrosse program, which finished 6-6 in 2007 and 2008. Capella has led the Tigers in scoring in each of his first two seasons in the Red & White, and he has earned second-team All-NCAC honors following both of his collegiate campaigns.

Erin Slattery

The conference included student-athletes like Slattery and Capella from NCAA Division I, II and III schools who have been identified as current or future leaders on their campuses and in their communities and offered them fresh ways of thinking about leadership. The conference is annually billed as the largest non-competitive gathering of NCAA student-athletes, and it has been designed to enhance leadership and communication skills.

"The leadership skills that I learned from others as well as the leadership skills that I was able to share really helped me build special relationships with many other student-athletes across the country," Capella said. "It's not every day that you get an opportunity to have athletes from all three divisions and all different backgrounds to come together and share a common goal of bettering the life of a student-athlete."

During the conference, participants discussed such topics as personality types, positive leadership methods, communication skills, hazing, student-athlete mental health, public-perception of student-athletes and religion in sports. Representatives of each division's national SAAC, which provides feedback to NCAA committees and councils regarding student-athlete issues, led discussion sessions and group activities during the conference. Open discussions about division-specific issues were also led by members of national SAAC.

A total of 43 coaches, athletics administrators and program facilitators joined the student-athletes at the conference, as Wittenberg Director of Athletics and Recreation Garnett Purnell did when he made a presentation at the 2003 event.

"My experience was nothing short of amazing," said Slattery, who will serve as the campus' Athletics Senator and vice president of Wittenberg's SAAC, a committee designed to network all athletes on campus with administrators and other teams, during the 2008-09 school year. "I had the opportunity to bond with 350 student athletes who all came from different schools, sports and cultures, yet we all shared the student-athlete lifestyle.

"This helped us connect on a very personal level. I learned a lot from my peers and facilitators, and I'm excited to implement these leadership tactics heading into an upperclassman role."

Capella was impacted in a similar way.

"This was the experience of a lifetime," Capella said. "Never could I imagine learning so much in three days. I am truly looking forward to implementing many of these ideas on campus and throughout the community. I am absolutely thrilled to return to Wittenberg and share the experiences with SAAC, as well as the rest of the student body."

Slattery and Capella, who were selected for the conference from a pool of more than 1,300 nominations, are the seventh and eighth Wittenberg student-athletes to attend the event. Mark Trempe, a 2003 graduate and a former all-conference track and field performer, represented Wittenberg at the 2002 conference; Kyle Dunaway, a 2004 graduate and an all-conference swimmer, represented Wittenberg in 2003; Raymar Hampshire, a 2005 graduate and an all-conference football player, made the trip in 2004; Meghan O'Rourke, class of 2008 and the starting goaltender on the women's soccer team, was in Florida for the 2005 conference; Ryan Hamilton, class of 2008 and a member of the men's swimming and diving team, attended the 2006 conference; and Allison Walker, class of 2008 and an all-conference track and field standout, attended the 2007 conference.

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