NFL, Valley Football Coaches Discuss Importance Of Strong Leadership
TEMPE, Ariz. – Student-athlete success at Arizona State University stretches beyond competition and includes excellence in the classroom, around the community and in their personal lives.
The National Football League Player Engagement High School & Collegiate Coaches Forum, which was held on Jan. 26 at the Memorial Union on ASU’s campus, featured presentations and roundtable discussions on a number of topics aimed at ensuring student-athletes at every level experience this holistic approach to success.
Themes of integrity, respect, responsibility and authenticity permeated each of the dialogues as the panelists and speakers spoke about the important role coach’s play in mentoring young people. In addition, they each talked about the unprecedented ability for athletes in today’s world to positively inspire, inform, initiate and influence societal change.
Five representatives from Sun Devil Athletics, including three former football student-athletes and two administrators, participated in two panel discussions during the event.
Jean Boyd, Sun Devil Athletics Senior Associate Athletic Director of Student-Athlete Development, and Marcus Walker, Sun Devil Football’s Director of Player Personnel, took part in a four-person panel with Anthony Edwards, Senior Director of Player Engagement for the Arizona Cardinals, and Anthony Viing, Athletics Director and Assistant Principal at Cactus High School, that examined strategies and ideas for enhancing student-athlete development.
Boyd and Walker referred to the Sun Devil Way, which looks at the social, emotional, moral and civic well being of student-athletes, and discussed the mutual trust and understanding that must exist between leaders and student-athletes in order to cultivate a beneficial relationship.
“The skill sets necessary to succeed athletically are transferrable to exceling off the field,” Boyd said. “We want to help young people develop a sense of worth beyond the uniform and competition.”
They mentioned one of the team’s goals this season, which is for every junior going into their senior year to do an internship for class credit. Walker said setting realistic goals and establishing a system of accountability that comes from their peers allows student-athletes to be self-driven, rather than coach driven.
“Once you hold yourself accountable, you want to achieve those goals because it’s something you invested in,” Walker said. “Therefore, you are more likely to obtain your goals.”
Boyd also talked about the importance of the relationship between the athletics department and the university. There are many resources available on campus, including counseling departments and career services, which are vital to the success of our student-athletes.
Former Sun Devil Football student-athletes Adam Archuleta, Kyle Middlebrooks and Andrew Walter joined Chris Draft, a former football student-athlete at Stanford, for a panel discussion on the athlete’s perspective. Each of them looked back at their collegiate careers and gave the audience an idea of the issues they faced as young men.
Walter mentioned financial literacy and life skills as one of his shortcomings, while Middlebrooks talked about time management and the ability to balance his future with the present. Archuleta said he mistakenly undervalued his undergraduate education and the opportunity that was presented to him while at ASU.
Each of the panelists also touched on the importance of maintaining their own personal brands, including the use of social media, and it how can both positively and negatively affect you, whether it’s college admission officers or executives from the NFL.
Joe Ehrmann, the NFL’s first Ed Block Courage Award winner and one of the Institute for International Sport’s “100 Most Influential Sport Educators in America,” discussed what it means to be an “inside-out coach” and spoke on what it means to be a young male in today’s society. Ehrmann, who was an Al-American football student-athlete at Syracuse and played professionally for 13 years, asked everyone in attendance what their purpose was when it comes to coaching: Is it about you or about the young people you are coaching? He said in order to be a better coach, you have to be a better person, and teach and build relationships based on social, moral and educational values. Relationships are the backbone of a successful life, Ehrmann discussed, and said a team is a set of relationships working toward a common goal. A team culture includes core values, and transformational coaches embrace this belief.
“Athletics should be not be considered extracurricular, but co-curricular,” Ehrmann said. “It should be the last class of the day, rather than an activity that occurs when learning is done, and is a vital part of educating our youth.”
Below is a look at a few of the initiatives the Sun Devil Football program and head coach Todd Graham have undertook off the field.
Equality Night
Ray Anderson, Sun Devil Athletics Vice President of University Athletics and Athletics Director, and Sun Devil Football Head Coach Todd Graham strongly supported offensive lineman Chip Sarafin, who came out publicly as a gay student-athlete this past August. Click here to read their statements.
Sun Devil Athletics partnered with Phoenix Pride this past fall for an Equality Night at a Sun Devil Football game and there are planned Equality Nights for all of SDA’s major sports. Ten percent of all proceeds from the tickets bought for the Equality Nights will be donated back to Phoenix Pride and the events have offered a community forum for anyone to support equality.
#DontDoIt - Domestic Violence Awareness Initiative
Sun Devil Football’s leadership council, which each year consists of a handful of the team’s most influential young men, launched a united stand against domestic violence this past October in honor of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. As part of the National Day of Unity on Oct. 6, the leadership council held a team meeting and asked every football student-athlete on the team to write down why they will do their part to stop domestic violence. Click here to read more about the team’s #DontDoIt initiative.
We Are A Community-Owned Asset
The Sun Devil Football team has remained heavily involved in the Scholar Baller leadership and outreach program, where student-athletes develop curriculum, deliver, teach and mentor students at schools around the community. Their topics are centered around the importance of academics, developing championship character and integrity, and creating a strong sense of self, among other things.
Academic Emphasis
Success in the classroom is part of the foundation of the program head coach Todd Graham is building in Tempe. A school-record 12 Sun Devil Football student-athletes were named to Pac-12 All-Academic teams this past season and the Devils have had 26 conference all-academic selections in the past three seasons under Coach Graham. Scholar Baller® recognition, which honors those who achieve a 3.0 GPA or higher, has been earned by 97 different football student-athletes in the six semesters under Coach Graham, including 45 in the Fall 2014 semester. Additionally, 10 current football student-athletes were also named to the Dean’s List, which recognizes those who achieve a GPA of 3.50 or higher, in Fall 2014.
As a team, Sun Devil Football was honored this past fall by the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) for graduating 90 percent or more of its student-athletes from the freshmen class of 2007. ASU shared the AFCA’s 2014 Academic Achievement Award, presented by the Touchdown Club of Memphis, with Duke, Northwestern, Notre Dame and Stanford. Individually, redshirt senior quarterback Taylor Kelly earned Pac-12 Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors, and was also named a National Football Foundation National Scholar-Athlete and finalist for academic Heisman, the William V. Campbell Trophy.