To best explain one of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee's priorities for the 2021-22 academic year — enhancing the student-athlete voice — committee chair and former Rutgers football player Ryan Cassidy starts with the people who came before him.
People who helped give the student-athlete voice a place in Division I governance.People like Kendall Spencer, the Division I SAAC chair in 2013.
In 2015, Spencer became the first student-athlete to serve on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors as part of the division's new governance structure, which added several student-athletes to standing committees, including the Division I Football Oversight Committee, which Cassidy served on last year.More recently, Spencer was named to the NCAA Constitution Committee, which was created to reimagine aspects of college sports. Spencer, alongside all three divisional SAACs, will help provide and facilitate student-athlete feedback to the committee.
Cassidy described the opportunity ahead as "overwhelming" and "humbling."
"The fact that I'm one of those people that can have that seat at that table, I feel a level of responsibility and almost a level of respect for the people who have really put in that time and put in that effort to put me in a position that I'm in," said Cassidy, the Big Ten Conference's representative on Division I SAAC who was elected chair earlier this year.
The position Cassidy and Division I SAAC are in comes at a seminal time in college sports, even beyond the constitutional review. Name, image and likeness opportunities are still new after aninterim NCAA policy was adopted in July. Mental health advocacy continues to be a focus for athletes at all levels. And the influence of the student-athlete voice has never been greater, according to Cassidy.
The three topics — student-athlete voice, name, image and likeness awareness, and student-athlete physical and mental health and well-being — are Division I SAAC's three priorities for 2021-22.
However, Division I SAAC — made up of one member from every Division I conference — wants to take student-athlete voice to the next level. According to Cassidy, much of this effort will come down to improving Division I SAAC's image, including among his peers.
The group wants to find ways to better collaborate and communicate with student-athletes who may not be part of SAAC at any level, particularly high-profile athletes whose platforms can bring attention to key issues in Division I. A subcommittee of Division I SAAC has proposed creating an ad hoc committee for this purpose.
"The more collaboration of high-profile athletes with SAAC members and just amongst all student-athletes as a whole … the better off we'll be in the future," said Cassidy, who played at Rutgers from 2017 to 2020 and graduated with a degree in economics. "We have responsibilities as SAAC members to include everybody. That's exactly what our priorities encompass."
Cassidy points out that, whether anyone outside the committee has noticed or not, Division I SAAC and its members have been influencing — and in at least one case, spearheading — key legislative decisions.
As a member of the Division I Football Oversight Committee when COVID-19 impacted the 2020 season, he witnessed the weight student-athlete voices carry with administrators. Recent changes to the division's one-time transfer exception came after SAAC members urged Division I to provide consistency in those rules for all its student-athletes. Division I SAAC also proposed civic engagement legislation to prohibit practice and competition, among other countable athletically related activities, on the first Tuesday after Nov. 1 every year.The Division I Council passed the legislation in September, and student-athletes were able to take advantage in the November election.
Cassidy thinks SAAC's work could be more appreciated, which is why it's prioritizing how it informs student-athletes of such efforts. The goal is to improve awareness by conference and campus SAACs of current issues being worked on at the national governance level. From there, the hope is that the reach to all student-athletes will increase. Within this effort, the committee is looking into developing a newsletter and enhancing the use of its social media channels to better inform its peers.
Additionally, Division I SAAC recently developed and distributed "best practice" documents to conference and campus SAACs. A rebranded SAAC logo across all three divisions is nearing completion, as well. Both efforts are aimed at better aligning the mission of the athlete-led groups across the country, reinforcing the reasons that student-athletes need to get involved in SAAC early and often.
"It is about getting involved in governance and legislation with policies that are going to shape and affect what the collegiate landscape is going to look like, not only this year and next year," Cassidy said, "but 50 years from now."
