07/02/13 Seniors Kara Gilley (Plymouth, Ind.) and Eric Courter (Carmel, Ind.) are hoping an experience they had last month leads to benefits in their post-collegiate pursuits.
They represented Manchester University at the NCAA’s Career in Sports Forum June 8-11. The forum focused on assisting student-athletes with making successful transitions from competition to their future professions in intercollegiate athletics, according to the NCAA.org web site.
“So many people at (the Career in Sports Forum) were athletes who were doing such amazing internships and other volunteer experiences related to their fields,” Gilley, a player on the Spartans’ women’s tennis squad, said. “It made me want to start looking for ways I can reach that caliber of experience.”
According to Gilley, many topics were presented.
“We had a day in which we worked with values and personal mission goals and how that can help us with an interview or how to incorporate those into working a job in athletics,” she said. “We spent a day filled with interviews and proper ways to conduct ourselves in interviews, not only with professionals in NCAA athletics but also our peers who can at times be the hardest ones to communicate with. We also spent some time talking about our next steps.
“There were some many speakers and individuals we had the chance to network with, too,” she added.
The student-athletes, who were selected for the Career in Sports Forum, were chosen by a committee made up of administrators from member institutions, conference offices and affiliate member organizations.
