Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Holds Annual Recognition Dinner

LAFAYETTE – The Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns Student-Athlete Advisory Committee held its annual recognition dinner on Monday at the historic Earl K. Long Gymnasium at which each representative was recognized for his or her service during the 2015-16 academic year.
 
The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) serves as the governing body for student-athletes. The committee is comprised of representatives from all athletic teams and meets throughout the school year.
 
The role of each member is to represent his or her team in terms of communicating information to and from administrative staff and coaches as well as organizing student-athlete development and community service events for all student-athletes.
 
The committee received a thank you for their service from Scott Farmer, Director of Athletics, and UL President, Dr. Joseph Savoie. The event included a special presentation, which featured the projects that the committee undertook throughout the 2015-2016 academic year.
 
During the 2015-16 year, the committee helped host Student-Athlete Development speakers and programs including financial literacy speaker, Eric Smith and former Ragin’ Cajun and current Major League Baseball player, Jonathan Lucroy.
 
SAAC helped collect monetary donations for the American Heart Association and collected donated items for Second Harvest Food Bank, St. Joseph’s Diner, Faith House Domestic Violence Crisis Center and the Northeast Louisiana Food Bank. The committee also coordinated the annual Reading in Red project in which student-athletes traveled to 11 local elementary schools to read to the students and encourage literacy as well as a host of other initiatives. In total the committee helped lead Ragin’ Cajuns Student-Athletes to contribute over 3,000 hours in community service and over $9,000 to area non-profit organizations.
 
The advisors to the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee are Associate Director of Athletics for Compliance and Academics, Dr. Jessica Leger, and Compliance Coordinator, Russell Register.
 
2015-16 UL Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Members
Baseball:  Nick Zaunbrecher, Dylan Moore, Chris Charpentier
Men’s Basketball: Kasey Shepherd      
Women’s Basketball: Sylvana Okde (President)
Football: Karmichael Dunbar, Evan Tatford                             
Golf: Thomas Strandemo, Ross Davis (Community Service Liaison)             
Softball: Haley Hayden, Jaime Landry                                                          
Soccer: Natalie Lebamoff (Vice President), Denice Emokpae                 
Men’s Tennis: Zac Fremin  
Women’s Tennis: Melissa Burckhartt                                         
Men’s Track: Lamont Abraham                                                                                                   
Women’s Track: Alex Harrell 
Volleyball: Stacey Reilly (Community Service Liaison), Shelby Romero (Secretary)
Trainers: Tamayria Miller