Impactful Campus Conversation brings espnW to Wisconsin
April 19, 2018 | General News, Andy Baggot, Varsity Magazine
Focused on female student-athletes, event shares opportunity to connect and grow
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BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — When Sarah Spain was a record-setting student-athlete at Cornell in the late 1990s, she could have used a moment of enlightenment like the one she helped inspire Monday night.
The 20th edition of Campus Conversations, a forum for female student-athletes at Wisconsin sponsored by espnW, took place at Varsity Hall inside Union South.
Spain, a well-known on-air TV reporter, columnist and radio personality for ESPN, was one of the marquee personalities for the event, which drew 100-plus participants from the 12 women's sports at UW.
The get-together included an open forum moderated by Spain and a panel of speakers featuring two ESPN executives, Carol Stiff and Katina Arnold, and a diverse group of accomplished women who know precisely how it feels to be a student-athlete at Wisconsin.
Dorcas Akinniyi excelled as a multi-event performer in track and field for the Badgers and now works in the UW Department of Counseling Psychology.
Claire Geiger, the grassroots development manager for World Bicycle Relief, and Carey Lohrenz, the first female F-14 Tomcat fighter pilot in the U.S. Navy, are former UW open-weight rowers.
Tamara Moore, a former standout guard who became the first Badgers player to be a first-round WNBA draft pick, is the owner and head coach for TC Elite Basketball.
Kristen Roman, who played volleyball for the Badgers, is now the UW Chief of Police.
Maria Van Abel, one of the premier center fielders and hitters in UW softball history, is an owner/instructor for 360U Softball, an elite skills academy.
Thank you @espnW & Badger alum for sharing many empowering messages with our women student-athletes tonight! #espnWBadgers
— UW SA Development (@UWSADevelopment) April 16, 2018
The six Wisconsin graduates came to the event with a wealth of perspectives. Lohrenz and Roman competed in the late 1980s — when sports like ice hockey, lightweight rowing and softball didn't yet exist at UW — graduating in 1987 and '90, respectively.
Moore, a UW Hall of Fame inductee, starred in the late 1990s, graduating in 2002.
Meanwhile, Geiger graduated in 2009, Akinniyi in '13 and Van Abel in 2015.
Their insights comingle nicely with Spain, who graduated from Cornell with a degree in English in 2002 after setting the school record in the javelin and serving as co-captain for the women's track and field team.
Spain looks back on her Ivy League education with a sense of appreciation for its lack of drama.
"Despite going to a difficult school and having a lot of things to balance, I never really struggled with keeping up with everything," she said.
"I worked very hard and it was difficult, but it wasn't something that caused me great, overwhelming stress. I was able to figure out things that I was good at and find my place and my role pretty easily."
"Success is not happiness. Happiness is success." -@SarahSpain #espnWBadgers @espnW #CampusConversations
— Wisconsin Badgers (@UWBadgers) April 16, 2018
But Spain knows that no two journeys are exactly the same, a point driven home during the previous 19 Campus Conversations. She participated in those held at Northwestern and Notre Dame.
"It feels like schools are getting better at offering support systems, whether that's for mental health or management or anything else, but there are a lot of athletes particularly who feel like the expectation is for them to be able to handle everything without reaching out for help," she said.
"So I think just having people come on campus and be honest and vulnerable about their own failures and their own struggles, it kind of makes them feel less alone in that and more able to reach out and ask for help if they need it."
The Campus Conversation model, developed and nurtured by Stiff, came to life in 2015 and was launched a year later when forums took place at Connecticut, Duke and Texas.
"We knew we needed to interact with the student-athletes," she said of the network.
"We just know that this is really our sweet spot for the content that we have on the site. We want to engage with this group because, the bottom line is we love direct engagement with the college student-athletes and we want them to be with us, to be part of our family as we go.
"We know we're filling a void and just from the feedback we know we're making a difference."
The teams turned out for espnW espnWBadgers Campus Conversations @BadgerWBB @BadgerSoftball
— Badger Nutrition (@BadgerNutrition) April 16, 2018
Terry Gawlik, the UW associate athletic director and senior women's administrator, and Stiff are friends.
"All the people I've talked to that did this on their campus said by far it was one of the best things they've ever done," Gawlik said.
The Campus Conversation format involves an open forum followed by breakout sessions where Gawlik said "kids can share anything they want to share" without authority figures present.
Participating UW student-athletes were split according to class — freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors — to best reflect experience levels.
Among the talking points: What was your experience transitioning to college? What are you struggling with now? Are you worried about the major you selected? How do you display confidence in a positive way? What have you learned as a student-athlete that will translate well into your professional life?
Moore said her breakout session with seniors — she was joined by Arnold, the vice president for corporate communications at ESPN — featured two written exercises as an icebreaker.
. @BadgerWBB represents #espnWBadgers
— Wisconsin Basketball (@BadgerWBB) April 16, 2018
The first had participants write a letter to their freshmen selves, offering advice. The other had them write a letter to themselves five years from now, projecting a sense of hope and anticipation.
"It was a great opportunity to help them understand where they came from and where they're going," Moore said. "I think it was a great opportunity and they got a lot out of it."
Stiff has been on hand for 18 of the 20 Campus Conversations — staged from Alabama and Army to Vanderbilt and Yale — and she's tracked some common themes.
One is how do you transition through your four years at college and, more importantly, what does that process look like upon graduation?
"The feedback that we'll hear from the students after they've attended is, 'Whew' and their shoulders come down and they go 'I don't have to know everything. I don't have to have everything buttoned up. It's OK. I'm OK,'" Stiff said.
Spain, who grew up in suburban Chicago and whose sister-in-law attended UW, drilled down a little deeper on the same topic.
"We're finding that the advice and leadership that most student-athletes need in most places are similar to other places," she said.
"So we're trying to tackle a lot of the biggest issues, which are usually dealing with being prepared for what happens when you enter the real world; what it's like when such a big part of your identity of being a student-athlete abruptly ends if you don't go on to be a professional; mental health and support and being a high achiever who's been under very high pressure situations amongst others who are also great in sports and academically gifted and everything else; how do you find your space?"
Another prominent theme, according to Stiff, has to do with broadening one's horizons. "If you're a (medical) student, why not take a music class?" she said.
Spain said student-athletes she's encountered typically are seeking mentors or advice on how to best quantify their athletic careers for postgraduate jobs. Spain advises them to enhance time management, leadership, teamwork skills and dedication.
Those items should be at or near the top of one's postgraduate resume.
The fundamental objective is empowering women.
"Success isn't happiness. Happiness is success," Spain told the gathering.
"We don't lift ourselves up enough or help each other out — in my opinion — in general," Gawlik said. "That's one thing that I hope comes out of it."
Gawlik picked a panel of former student-athletes based in large part on their diverse life experiences. She was overjoyed to see a large cluster of current student-athletes talking with the panelists well after the program ended.
"It was more impactful than I ever hoped," Gawlik said. "A lot of people were saying they wished it could have been longer."
Wisconsin Volleyball representing at last night's @espnW Campus Conversations! @BadgerVB ??#espnWBadgers
— Chief Kristen Roman (@WiscChief) April 16, 2018
That jibes with Stiff's experiences with Campus Conversations. The former college athlete and coach — basketball and field hockey — knows the value of the project to student-athletes young and old.
"I would say every single one of the panelists — I'm included in this — I wish I had this when I was going through college," she said.
