CAC SAAC Meeting—Athletic & Recreation Center, St. Mary’s College
Sunday February 17, 2008
Meeting called to order: 1 p.m. (pizza and beverages were provided by St. Mary's College prior
to meeting)
Attending: Tom Byrnes, CAC Commissioner, Casey Knauss, York, Emily Smithson, St.
Mary's, Alecia Weddle, Hood, Jamie Gardner, Hood, Stephanie Gardner, Hood, Adrienne
Gonzales, Hood SAAC advisor, Caitlin Mosholder, Gallaudet, Jodi Winkelmann, Gallauder,
Will Sutton, Wesley, Matthew Carmichael, Wesley asst. men's soccer coach, Zuzka O'Zwoldike,
Salisbury, Lauren DePaul, Salisbury, Nicole Starner, York, Jesse Roche, St. Mary's, Anna Sody,
Marymount, Arielle Childs, Marymount, Bethany Ferralli, Villa Julie, Shawne McCoy, St.
Mary's Asst. AD
Old Business:
1 Think Pink
2 SU, Hood, St. Mary’s, and Wesley participated.
3 Most schools did it at basketball games with pink accessories.
4 Pennies for the Poor
5 York: did a competition between athletic teams and put containers at basketball
games.
6 St. Mary’s: put containers at swimming and basketball
7 Hood: Overall pennies for poor was a success
8 Canned Food Drive
9 very few schools participated
10 many found it was difficult getting enough cans
11 Marymount were successful by going to grocery stores and soliciting out front
They also made it a competition between teams
12 Reading Buddies: St. Mary’s
- Some members of teams go in once every two weeks and read at elementary schools
* For all the charity fundraisers, the money collected at each school was given to organizations
chosen by the individual institution SAACs.
5
How to get more participation from team representatives:
6 Representatives should be emailing his or her teams with information discussed at
meetings.
7 More administrative support needed (coaches enforcing players to attend meetings)
8 Incentives for attending meetings (food, t-shirts)
6
How to get the campus community involved:
7 many schools have fan clubs for students to join (ex. Loud crowd, blue crew)
8 give out t-shirts for attending games or some sort of reward
9 have a special student section
7
Where does SAAC funding come from:
8
9
mostly from the athletics department from each school
not all schools have a coach as an advisor
Election of Officers
8 Last time we decided not to hold elections because there were so few meetings
9 Without officers the national conference doesn’t know who to contact.
-need to contact conference chair about an issue then they can get the summary from each
school to report back to the national committee.
1 It was determined that having officers would be beneficial to the organization.
-President: Casey Knauss, York
-Vice President: Emily Smithson, St. Mary's
Conference Website:
2 It was determined that very few people look at the website much less know that it actually
exists.
3 Ideas for improvement:
4 SAAC representatives inform teams
5 Adding more pictures and possibly streaming video to the site
6 Teams can send in pictures to be posted
7 Announce the contests on the website (competitions in fundraising etc.)
8 Blog (or message board)
difficult to filter manually
Would it be open to the whole conference? Or just SAAC reps?
9 Competition to see which schools students visits the website the most
10 Needs to be individualized: interviews from athlete of the week, videos
11 Videos in general are a great idea
* There is a national SAAC website (Google SAAC) for ideas about projects
Get Out and Vote
1 Encouraging athletes to vote in the upcoming Presidential Election since we are members of
the Capital Athletic Conference.
2 Get people absentee ballots
3 No practice in order to go vote
4 Could be a competition to see how many people schools can get to vote
5 Try to get involved with other organizations on campus
6 Provide information about each of the candidates
7 Get freshmen to register to vote
Professor Involvement:
1 York and St. Mary’s: Team picked a professor and invited them to be a VIP at the game.
Gave them a gift bag. Also have the professor maybe attend practice as well.
2 Science Night
3 professor from all the different sciences (these professors are usually not as involved
in athletics)
4 contests and food
5 held at a bball game
6
2
Senior Night
-each senior picks a professor to come to the game.
Give schedules to teachers when you give them your conflict forms
Priority in Signing up for classes for Athletes:
3 York:
4 don’t have sole priority because seniors always get to go first
5 basically get to register as if they were in junior standing regardless of what year they
are
6 More of a middle ground so it does not seem as if athletes get special treatment.
New Legislation:
4 No more text messaging as form of recruiting (all divisions):
5 AIM and facebook type pages are also ban
6 Players can’t text message recruits either
7 Exception is hearing impaired schools
8 No competition for basketball can start before November 15.
9 For team sports, male practice player can’t practice with females more than once a week.
10 individuals must be eligible to practice
11 only with team sports
12 ½ of starting line-up rounded up for number of males allowed to practice at a time.
Potential Split of Division 3
1 There are 420 D-3 schools and 4 more can be added each year
2 Issues concerning the split that are controversial between schools
3 in general there is a huge diversity between D-3 schools
4 restrictive vs. not as restrictive
5 Planned to vote on it next January
6 If it passes it will likely be implemented in the 2011-12 school year.
7 Representatives need to ask students at his or her institution what they think about the issues
that are being raised regarding this issue -- information available at www.ncaa.org (look for
DIII page)
Improvements in CAC
1 Lack of spectators at women’s sports
-really more of a societal issue
2 Lack of spectators in general
3 competition between athletic teams for number of events that they attend
4 Lack of respect for D-3 athletes
5 buy chords for graduation
6 however goes back to the D-3 philosophy - can't provide extra benefits for athletes
7 Recognition for those who don’t always get it on a conference wide level
8 Most improved
9 Spirit
10 Make CAC conference wide awards more recognized (meaning the overall end of the
year awards).
Meeting adjourned 3:30 p.m.
Next meeting: TBA