If you google the phrase “we’re educating tomorrow’s leaders” the internet search engine takes about a third of a second to spit back links to roughly 175,000 entries all across the world wide web.
Leadership training is thoroughly engrained in the education experience at Alvernia College. The Department of Athletics and Recreation employs the NCAA’s CHAMPS/Lifeskills Program to weave leadership through the extracurricular experience of the student-athletes. The NCAA promotes the program as a way to “enhance the quality of the student-athlete experience within the context of higher education through five main commitment statements; commitment to academic and athletic excellence, personal and career development, and to service.”
The commitment to academic excellence at Alvernia is demonstrated through the development of student-athlete services. Nicole Rhoads, the on-campus program coordinator, directs those in need to the use of the campus learning center and weekly study halls which are aimed toward keeping student-athletes on track to graduate with more than just the minimum requirements. In recent years her efforts have led to a consistent increase in the number of conference all-academic award winners. Last year the Crusaders earned 96 total awards, the highest total to date and a six percent increase over the year prior.
The Crusaders are also making strides academically on the national level as evidenced by 2006 graduate and current Marketing & Communications Specialist,
Carey Manzolillo (Douglass) earning the school’s first College Sports Information Director’s Academic All-American award.
Athletically, in the school’s 15th and final year of competition in the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference (PAC), Alvernia has amassed 93 conference championships appearances, 36 times reaching the championship finals, and 23 times emerging as PAC Champion. The Crusaders hold a dozen individual titles in conference play and have garnered an impressive 164 All-PAC First Team awards and 21 times have accepted a player of the year award.
The accomplishments that prove academic and athletic excellence can easily be stacked up against many similar institutions. What will continue to set the Alvernia experience apart is the focused commitment to personal and career development and the commitment to service.
In the past four years, Alvernia has had three student-athletes chosen to attend the NCAA National Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida. The most recent representative, sophomore men’s basketball player
Nick Rivera, is in his first year as a Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) representative for basketball, and credits his time in Orlando last June with helping him develop more confidence as a leader and supplying him with resources he may need down the road.
Rivera, a criminal justice major, was one of about 10 freshmen in a conference of 300 student-athletes from around the country. “What sticks our for me is how the conference really gave me confidence in speaking out in a group of my peers,” recounted Rivera just hours before setting career highs in points and rebounds in a 79-48 win at Centenary College.
Rivera still keeps in touch with other student-athletes he met in Orlando and is working toward implementing an action plan he helped form during his five-day stay. “I was in a group of 20-25 people who got together to work on developing a drug testing policy and enforcement that would help our athletic departments,” said Rivera. “We all still keep in touch and want to move forward with out action plan. Other people we talk to started plans that have faded out, and we don’t want that happening to us.”
He notes that in order for their plan to succeed it becomes incumbent on the students to take responsibility for the action plan and not wait on action from coaches or administration.
Fellow student-athletes
Janelle Lynch and
Tom Novak attended a regional leadership workshop in Pittsburgh last January with staff advisory
Kevin Meany where they picked up similar skills.
Lynch and Novak both recalled learning what makes a good and bad team leader. Novak enters his second season as a caption of the men’s lacrosse team and Lynch, the conference player of the year in field hockey, looks forward to that opportunity as she enters her junior season next fall.
“Captaincy is vital to a team’s success,” noted Lynch. “It has a lot to do with building moral. It’s a position that comes with a lot of responsibility.”
Novak is just starting preseason practice for his senior season on the lacrosse team. At the regional conference he was struck by the fact that everyone responds differently to different styles of leadership. “As a leader you have to adapt the styles that work for your teammates,” said Novak. “The regional conference and being a captain as a junior both taught me to take time after practice and games to think about how I might have to change my approach to being a leader.”
Novak recounted his high school captaincy as a blur, not really remembering much from that experience, but in college he has learned to take advantage of his opportunities. As a Sport Management major he jumped at the chance to be part of the Sport Management Association (SMA) and now serves as president of what became the largest club on campus on the first day of signups.
It is the first experience Novak has in any organization and he credits the confidence he gained from presenting in Pittsburgh and subsequently back on campus for his comfort in rising to the position of SMA President.
The fifth and final commitment in CHAMPS/Lifeskills, the commitment to service, is something all students at Alvernia take a hand in. Student-athletes in recent history have fulfilled a graduation requirement participating in a number of different service opportunities. In the fall 11 student-athletes joined with representatives from other PAC schools to volunteer at the 21st Annual Ronald McDonald House of Scranton’s 5K Race in Nay Aug Park. The Department of Athletics & Recreation has also used student assistance to coordinate a Toys for Tots drive over the last two years, and the men’s basketball team participated in a Coaches vs. Cancer tripleheader hosted by the Reading Railers at the Sovereign Center. This spring a group of student-athletes will again join the PAC to volunteer at a Habitat for Humanity event in York.
Leadership training is an integral part of development for all students at Alvernia College from undergraduate through the newly developed PhD program. The Department of Athletics and Recreation, through the NCAA’s CHAMPS/Lifeskills Program, hopes to continue to build on a solid foundation as we all educate tomorrow’s leaders.