By Maggie Samole / Staff writer

Female student athletes recently had the opportunity to see athletics from different perspective. The "Winning Careers in Athletics" workshop, hosted by the Allegheny Mountain Collegiate Conference from Nov. 9 through 12, presented insight into careers as coaches and administrators.

The WinStar Foundation presented the workshop, which was hosted by LaRoche College, an AMCC member school. The workshop provided 34 student athletes and 16 mentors with information about the history of women’s athletics, officiating, Title IX and coaching.

The workshop opened with a session led by Ann Salerno of WinStar’s development team on networking tools and communication strategies. Salerno said networking and communicating in different ways are important skills to master.

“To be successful in athletics, you must be multilingual,” Salerno said. “Communication rapport is huge.”

Three prominent women in the history of women’s collegiate athletics presented sessions at the workshop.

Judy Sweet, former president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, presented “Who’s Who” in the NCAA. Charlotte West, who served in several capacities within the NCAA and the now defunct Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, lectured on the history of women in sport through the 20th century and into today. Christine Grant, an associate professor in the department of health and sports studies at the University of Iowa, presented a workshop on Title IX.

Title IX is a federal law stating, “No person in the United States, shall on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” Athletics weren’t initially thought to be a part of Title IX, but Grant said women’s athletics are now covered to guarantee comparable opportunities to those of men.

“Title IX is about fairness,” Grant said. “Nothing more, nothing less. It isn’t to hurt men’s opportunities in sports, but rather to guarantee women have the same opportunities.”

Grant also said Title IX doesn’t apply to all-female schools.

“Title IX deals with opportunities for the under-represented gender,” Grant said. “In a single-gender school, that problem doesn’t exist. However, it does create a loophole where women in those schools can have their needs neglected.”

Students interested in seeing how their college or university measures up with Title IX can ask their athletic department. Schools are required to allow people to view their NCAA report when asked. Students wishing to compare their school’s compliance with Title IX to others can visit www.womenssportsfoundation.org.

Other presenters at the “Winning Careers in Athletics” workshop were Leah Nilsson, Director of Division III, and Celia Slater, the executive director of the NCAA Women Coaches Academy. Nilsson’s program explained the different career opportunities within collegiate sports and the NCAA.

Slater’s workshops covered coaching at the various levels of the NCAA and developing a personal philosophy as a cornerstone of a career in athletics.

She said it is important to come up with a philosophy now to build a career upon it in the future.

“You need to start right now,” Slater said. “You live it either consciously or unconsciously. You need to find your philosophy, develop it and live it.”