There is great debate on what exactly fits into the category of “business casual.” Personally, I take the more formal route, with a nice pantsuit or slacks and a blouse. Others, (mainly the boys at my university) believe that jeans fit into the business casual category. UWF's award ceremony for athletes was deemed “business casual,” and you can imagine the varying outfits presented by the hundreds of athletes that attended. On a smaller scale, the conference that I just participated in was also “business casual,” but most of us stuck with the more “business” side of clothes.
The conference I attended was held in Birmingham, Ala., and consisted of other Student Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC) members from every school in the Gulf South Conference. SAAC is a committee of two or three athletes from each sport at each school, and they are tasked with being the overall student-athlete representatives for the entire school. They get to vote on NCAA rules, relay information from GSC officials to their teams, etc. I am the vice president for UWF SAAC, so I went with our president from the women's golf team to the GSC SAAC Conference. There, we met the representatives from each school in our conference and spent three days volunteering, listening to guest speakers and having business meetings of our own. I learned so much about the process of college athletics behind the scenes, mental health, banned substances and more.
To be honest, I was not very active in SAAC when my coach first appointed me to the committee. I was not the best at talking to new people and going out of my way to make new relationships in the athletic community outside of my sport. But, with help from my advisors and peers, I have really stepped out of my comfort zone and succeeded in doing all of the things that I had been too nervous to do the year before. I am morphing into a businesswoman, and it is very exciting. It helps to be working alongside a president that wants to make change in the same ways that I do. I cannot even begin to express how great of a team we make, and how excited we are to start this year. Along with this, a year ago I never would have thought that I would be in the position that I am now, yet here I am. I have stepped out of my comfort zone and ended up in a position to make a change, which has been a long-term goal in my life. I hope you all read this column and apply it to your own life, and know that you can do the same thing. You might not be as far from achieving your long-term goals as you think. Take the leap, try something new. You never know where you may end up.