Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Minutes
January 29, 2020

Meeting was called to order with the following members present: Carly Campbell, Sydney Lane, Riley Bell, Halle Brester, Faith Carpenter, Payton Douglass, Sydney Hartsock, Jasmine Rumley, Helaina Hillyard, Kylie Morrison, and Katie Carver.  Gary Ross, Heidi Reed, and Lisa Brinkmeyer represented the IGHSAU.

Brinkmeyer welcomed the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee members and explained the opening activity. Committee members were divided into three groups for an IGHSAU trivia competition.  The groups were asked IGHSAU-related questions (activities, history, information).  The Committee did a remarkable job with the trivia questions and learned a few things as well.

Last year’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee developed a poster that was shared with schools around the state.  This year’s Committee wanted to continue the poster project and create a positive-themed message for female students with an “Iowa Girl” focus. Committee members shared possible themes for the poster.  As discussion ensued, a common theme of role modeling developed. The importance of the “Iowa Girl” in modeling for younger, future student-athletes was also emphasized. The Committee incorporated the following quote, which they felt epitomized their theme, “Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become and the hours of practice and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back…play for her.” - Mia Hamm.  When the Committee finalized their layout, a sample poster was made for the Committee’s review.  The posters will be distributed to schools next fall.

Brinkmeyer asked the Committee for feedback pertaining to a concussion discussion they had at a previous meeting. Carpenter shared a concussion survey and results she developed and distributed to students at her school. Committee members felt the survey would be a good measure of student-athletes’ concussion knowledge (signs, short and long-term effects, etc.).  Carpenter will send the survey to Committee members to conduct similar surveys in their schools.  Committee members will bring their results to the May meeting for discussion.

After lunch Committee members recorded sportsmanship videos, which will be shown at IGHSAU state tournaments.  The recorded videos will be available to schools for use at home contests.

Brinkmeyer shared information about the Classification Committee that has been formed by the IGHSAU and IHSAA to study Iowa’s high school classification. She explained the classification process the IGHSAU uses to form classes for the various sports. The Committee was then divided into groups to create a mock classification for soccer.  Committee members had to use the BEDs document, while considering cooperative sharing agreements, to determine the participating schools’ BEDs number.  It was a fun learning experience for an important process for each sport.

With no further business, meeting adjourned at 2:00 pm.

Gary Ross
IGHSAU