Villanova, Pa. – Three Villanova University Athletics postgraduate interns recently had the opportunity to attend the NCAA Emerging Leaders Seminar at the NCAA national offices in Indianapolis, Ind. Marissa Avanzato, Emmanuel Morris and Lisa Payton represented Villanova at the seminar, which included a total of 220 interns and graduate assistants across all three divisions of the NCAA.

Avanzato is a postgraduate intern in the Media Relations office at Villanova. She is a recent graduate of Worcester State University, where she played on the softball team. In her role, Avanzato handles public relations efforts for the field hockey, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, rowing and baseball teams.

Morris, a postgraduate intern in the Office of Academic Support, graduated in May from Villanova with a Comprehensive Science degree. He was also a member of the baseball team, during his time on campus. Morris takes part in providing supplemental support for academics in addition to counseling student-athletes in regards to progress towards their degrees.

Payton, a recent graduate of Temple University with a degree in Sports Management, is a postgraduate intern in the Athletics Compliance Office and Student-Athlete Development. Payton provides professional programming for student-athletes, NCAA rules education and research, helps with SAAC, works with coaches on campus and official/unofficial visits.

According to the NCAA, the Emerging Leaders Seminar is an annual professional development event that provides effective leadership, educational and transitional programming for current graduate assistants and interns from NCAA membership schools, conference offices and affiliate organizations.

On the first day of the seminar, all of the attendees were split up into groups to take the DiSC personality assessment. The assessment helped to determine the strengths and weaknesses of all the attendees, and it also provided solutions on how to work with others.

During the second day of the seminar, the attendees had the opportunity to hear from Oliver Luck, the NCAA Executive Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. Other speakers throughout the day included Glenn Sugiyama, President of DHR International, and Karen Stromme, the Associate Athletics Director for Internal Operations and Senior Women’s Administrator at the University of Minnesota-Duluth.

In the afternoon, those in attendance split up into groups by their job focuses, which allowed the participants to network with other individuals with similar career interests.

The final day of the seminar was spent listening to Felicia Martin, the Associate Athletic Director for Academic Services at Texas Tech, and Meg Stevens, the Director of Athletics at Averett University. The emerging leaders were also given a project to plan a homecoming event. The project was given to see how creative the attendees could be in planning an event in such a short amount of time.

For the three Villanova postgraduate interns in attendance, the experience was very rewarding.

“After leaving the NCAA Emerging Leaders Seminar, I feel so motivated and inspired to continue my career in intercollegiate athletics,” said Avanzato.

“I met some great friends, and I now feel so connected with other young professionals all over the country. I learned more about the college sports industry and more about myself over the course of three days. It was truly a beneficial experience that I will never forget,” she added.

To Morris, the experience provided him with an opportunity to learn about other viewpoints within intercollegiate athletics.

“The NCAA did a great job of selecting a wide variety of people that represented all levels of college athletics at the seminar which helped provide all of us with another perspective we might not have been aware of before,” said Morris.

“After our three short days, I left Indy feeling truly inspired thanks to all of the amazing speakers who carried out a powerful message of what it means to work in college athletics, as well as what drives them to provide the best for their student-athletes every day. It was also great to be surrounded by 220 fellow GAs and interns who were all in the same boat in terms of getting their careers off the ground. Having the chance to share ideas and career goals makes me very hopeful for the future of the industry.”

Payton learned more about leadership, while also reaffirming her commitment to the profession.

“The biggest take away from the conference was definitely increasing my knowledge about my own leadership style and learning how to adapt this behavior to work well with others,” said Payton.

“The facilitators did an amazing job of providing representation of all pillars of college athletics, who no matter what level of athletics they work at all share a common goal: to provide the best student-athlete experience. The seminar definitely reassured me that I am in the right profession and I am so happy that I got to represent Villanova Athletics.”