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People SearchFind an individual who either played a sport or was a member of a support group. Search by last name by clicking on the first letter of the person's last name.
Ms. Bridgette Adorno
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Home Phone: 504-394-2598 Adorno’s NCAA Leadership Conference Diary Although most memories are usually happy, very few make an impact and stay with us forever. The NCAA Leadership Conference is a memory that I will never forget. When I first found out that I was going to participate in this conference from May 27-May 31 in Orlando Fla., I was told that the experience would be fun, unforgettable, and that I would make lifelong friends. I thought to myself that I could believe the first two words, but picturing the last phrase was difficult. I found it hard to believe that I could make friends within 3.5 days, nonetheless, lifelong friends (I hardly keep up with my high school friends and neighborhood friends)! Yet, I was still open-minded and I was ready to represent University of Louisiana at Lafayette. The NCAA Leadership Conference hosted over 350 student-athletes from all divisions. They split everyone into different colored teams. Upon arriving at the Disney World Coronado Resort, I found out that I was on the Peach Team (the best team ever)! We were handed a humungous binder with everything that we were going to do in a matter of four days. I’m talking about 150 pages worth of material we were going to cover. Although a little overwhelmed, I knew it was going to be a blast. Before I go on I need to explain to you what the trip was actually supposed to mean. You might be thinking to yourself, well obviously it is about leadership and how to be a productive leader. Yes, but that is actually a very small part. The conference is also about discovering where you fit into your team and how you can utilize your position to motivate others. The conference also teaches you your inner strengths and weaknesses through a test called the DiSC assessment test. Through certain games/activities you can see how your predicted behaviors arise which enables you to change them. The conference does not want to change who you are. It is meant to teach you how to recognize your talents/behaviors and how to become a more versatile person that you should bring back to your campus. The first evening we met with our colored teams for the first time. Although it was the first time with the peach team, I had already introduced myself to many, many other people. Basically the conversations were all like this the first day: Hi my name is Bridgette Adorno. I am from University of Louisiana at Lafayette. I play soccer, and I am majoring in Biology…what about you? The first few times it was a mouthful to say but after about 20 times I got the hang of it. After the first session was over everyone went straight to bed since we had all been up so long from our flights. I did not expect what came ahead in the next three full days… We were awoken every morning around 6:45 a.m. to start the day. As I mentioned earlier, we took the DiSC test. This told us which behavior we fit into most: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, or Conscientiousness. These categories told your strengths and weaknesses. When I took the test my score was highest in the “S” category. This meant that I take my time to work out problems, I am indecisive, and I am agreeable, relaxed and patient…yep that is definitely me and I am proud of it. Now the question is how do I turn this into leadership? Well, that’s for the rest of the conference experience. Within the group we promised to each other that whenever someone was acting like a true “D”, “I”, “S”, or “C” and needed to change, then we would straight up tell each other. Now I was thinking how am I going to make friends when the whole time I am supposed to criticize people and they are going to criticize me back? And let me tell you, there was a lot of criticizing going on. Flashing a bit forward, I later came to realize that it isn’t the strengths that hold people together; it is their weaknesses. If you think about it, your true friends know everything about you, especially everything you do wrong. The teams that that accept a person’s weak spot are the ones that actually do better because they try to fix the problem together. The hard part of the conference was to recognize and show yourself that you do have a weakness. Later on that night, we were put to the test of how to work together as a team. In our binder it said that evening we were going to eat and do an activity; however, little did we know the activity would be the problem of eating. We arrived at an outside ranch with the heavenly scent of BBQ. All I was thinking was how hungry I was. We sat down to eat (or at least that is what we thought), but it came to our attention that we had to cook our own food. We were all thinking that we will have to make our own salad or top our dessert…but no…there was raw chicken, noodles, raw vegetables, lettuce, heavy whipping cream, BBQ sauce, and some fruit. All they said was GO! Our group had to feed over 50 people in a matter of 40 minutes. Now picture this, all college students who like fast food, especially who are all athletes in which we basically get food handed to us, cooking. The first thing I thought of when I saw the raw chicken was ‘salmonella’ and I was scared. But I had to trust the people on my team, who never grilled before, to grill the chicken…and thoroughly. It was crazy; people were running around everywhere to figure out what to do, but eventually everything turned out fantastic (and no one went home early from food poisoning). Our dinner consisted of BBQ chicken, pasta with Alfredo sauce, fruit salad, shish kabobs, regular salad with carrots and other good stuff, and an amazing strawberry shortcake dessert with whip cream on top (and yes, someone whipped the whipping cream for 30 minutes to make it into whip cream). The awesome day ended with karaoke and another exciting day was yet to come. The rest of the conference trip was formulating an “action plan” on how to change something at your school by utilizing the behavior patterns that we learned the day before. We picked apart our action plans all day for the next two days. Our reward was to go to Disney World! And all my dreams came true!! It was here when I started to realize that the people I was with would definitely stay in my life forever. We are even trying to get together a reunion already! The last full day consisted of putting together everything we have learned into action by playing outdoor games and learning or reestablishing NCAA rules and regulations and how to better understand them. It was very informative and I learned about things that I didn’t even know existed. That night there was a banquet which consisted of dinner, dance, and entertainment. We were able to watch awesome performances by Nancy Huey and the Dynamic Duo. Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end. The last day was full of goodbyes. I didn’t expect to be sad since I didn’t think I was going to meet lifelong friends, but I did. At first, I was scared about feeling vulnerable that first day, but it brought amazing people into my life. I figured out that it is our weaknesses that bring people and teams together. You have to experience the bad before you can cherish the good. And that makes the good feel so much sweeter. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of a leader is “a person, who commands, conducts, influences, or guides a group of members to achieve certain goals.” Through this conference, my definition of a leader is one who has the will to inspire. **View all of Bridgette Adorno’s Diaries in the Gumbo section of the RaginCajuns.com Soccer page.** – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Chris Whitehead, Sports Information – Women’s soccer player Bridgette Adorno will represent Louisiana-Lafayette at LAFAYETTE-Bridgette Adorno, senior captain of Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns women’s soccer team, will represent the Ragin’ Cajuns at the NCAA National Leadership Conference at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The conference is set to take place from May 27 through May 31. The NCAA National Leadership Conference provides NCAA student-athletes with a forum to openly discuss issues that may affect them on their campuses and in their communities, while also providing them with the opportunity to enhance their leadership, communication, decision-making and problem-solving skills. The leadership conference also promotes better communication among student-athletes, coaches, administrators, faculty and communities. The five-day leadership conference consists of daily exercises and activities to help the student-athletes develop as individuals and as contributing members to a group. Adorno has been a three-year starter for the Ragin’ Cajuns soccer team, earning captain honors her junior year. She was named to the National Soccer Coaches of America/Adidas College Women Scholar All-South Region last season along with her teammates Meghan Crawford, Taunya Geelhoed and Stephanie Lynch. Adorno earned All-Sun Belt Conference Academic accolades in 2006. She was one of 15 Cajuns’ soccer players to earn all-conference academic honors. Adorno joined Crawford, Geelhoed, Lynch, Kat Bergeron, Dannae DeVahl, Jen Hungate, Kerri Luyties, Kristen Malen, Callie Oliver, Erika Saffer, Erin Suckling, Lindsay Webb, Stephanie Weston and Lyndsey Winters. The Ragin’ Cajuns women’s soccer team has had one of the best grade point averages over the past few years. The Cajuns soccer team had the second highest team GPA in the spring and fall of 2005, while holding the top honor in the spring of 2006. The soccer team remained in the top-3 in the fall of 2006 finishing behind volleyball and women’s cross country. Eighteen of the Cajuns’ 26 soccer players had a GPA of 3.0 or better during the fall 2007 semester. Of the 18 players, five made Dean’s List for having a 3.2 or better with 12 players being named to the President’s List for achieving a 3.5 GPA or higher. NCAA Leadership Conference Program History In conjunction with the CHAMPS/Life Skills Program, the NCAA Foundation in 1996 created the NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference. The mission of the conference is to provide a diverse group of the nation’s top student-athletes an opportunity to actively participate in challenging and thought-provoking activities that will enable them to become better leaders on their campuses and in their communities. The conference is an outgrowth of the successful CHAMPS/Life Skills Program and involves up to 350 student-athletes representing CHAMPS/Life Skills colleges and universities as well as the national Student-Athlete Advisory Committees. Each institution nominates four student-athletes who have demonstrated an ability or strong desire to be leaders and would benefit from a significant leadership experience. In order to be eligible, applicants must be in good academic standing and must have athletics eligibility remaining in the following academic year. As a result of participation, student-athletes will enhance their communication skills, decision-making and problem-solving skills, critical-thinking skills and collaborative skills. The conference also promotes better communication among student-athletes, coaches, administrators, faculty and communities. Topics for past conferences have included developing leadership skills; changing perception; developing political skills and utilizing the student-athlete committee. The inaugural conference sponsored by Entergy Corporation and Walt Disney World Sports was held in May 1997 in Orlando, Florida. – – – – – – – – – – – – Soccer: Adorno’s family deals with storm September 16, 2005 – Bruce Brown Bridgette Adorno’s family is not accustomed to dodging hurricanes. Oh, they’ve seen plenty of them as residents of New Orleans’ West Bank. They just don’t leave. This time they did, for Hurricane Katrina. “They were planning on staying for the storm,” said Adorno, a midfielder for Louisiana’s Ragin’ Cajuns soccer team, which hosts McNeese tonight. “I think Hurricane George was the only time before this storm that we left. When I talked to my dad on the phone and he said they were leaving, that’s when I knew it would be really bad.” This time, it was different. The Adorno family welcomed a new daughter in June, and she was a big reason they fled safely to Houston to ride out the disaster. “They escaped fine, and went to Houston to go by my mom’s brothers,” Adorno said. “I’ve been on the phone and heard some tragic stories. “My best friend’s house is ruined. He has attic fans that fell through the second floor, and the rain just poured in. Now I don’t know if I’ll see him again. He’s already moved to a new home in Houston. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.” The Hurricane Katrina experience came full circle for Adorno last weekend when the Cajun squad joined visiting Oklahoma State, McNeese and Wisconsin-Green Bay in reaching out to hurricane victims when not competing in UL’s Ragin’ Cajun Classic. “We helped out with the Food Net location on North University,” UL coach Scot Wieland said. “They were helping people. I don’t think they had a grasp of how desperate it is for some of these families. “When you fix up a box with food and clothes for a family with children who have nothing, it opens your eyes. Our players were so touched by the whole experience that we went back again on Monday. It’s really important to them.” “I was really happy, to the point of crying, to see our team and the other teams helping those people out,” Adorno said. “They got out, but the flip side is that they’re without food and without much clothing. Our team and others were willing to help.” Adorno’s family saw a big tree on their property topple over between their house and garage in a recent hurricane – “it might have been Lili” – so they know how close disaster can be. This time damage was minimal. They were fortunate once again, but the experience weighs on the minds of New Orleanians. “Sometimes it’s hard to practice,” Adorno said. “But I come out here and hear my teammates talking about school and laughing. Soccer is my fantasy world to escape to. It helps me to get away.” Originally published September 16, 2005
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