February 23, 2012
Wellin Hall welcomed a crowd of a different sort last Monday, Feb. 13, as a sea of Continental blue and sweatpants overtook the often austere environment of the spacious music hall. Over 500 Hamilton student-athletes gathered at the mandatory meeting to hear Athletic Director Jon Hind announce Hamilton’s new initiatives, known as the ADOPT Program, for unifying the Athletics Department and increasing athletes’ positive contributions to life on the Hill.
While for the past five years, every Continental has received some sort of speech encouraging unity among athletes and a greater presence in the Hamilton community, there had never been a meeting of the entire college athletic community in one location to hear one cohesive message. According to Hind, “That’s what drove the meeting. We wanted everyone to hear the platform. We’re trying to shape a specific culture, but we need to define it for everyone.”
Named in memory of Alex Pagnelli ’12, the ADOPT Program consists of five tenets Hamilton athletes are encouraged to incorporate into their daily lives, including bystander intervention, community service, sportsmanship, leadership and team unity. The purpose of the program’s name is to give students total control over their actions, making the plan something students can choose to “adopt” for themselves rather than having forcing it upon them.
One of the program’s main foci is creating a more encouraging environment for proactive bystander intervention. “Too often, someone has witnessed something but didn’t know how to get in the middle or didn’t feel comfortable,” remarked Hind. In recent months, there have been a variety of occasions in which fans of the Continentals have been perceived in a negative manner due to the actions of a few individuals, whether through racial slurs at a fall soccer match or a group of jeering, inebriated fraternity brothers at a men’s basketball game. In reaction to these disappointing portrayals of Hamilton students, Hind stated, “We can and should do better.”
The Athletic Department hopes to be able to host training sessions to instruct students in how to intervene in tense situations while remaining on a personal comfort level. Blue silicone wristbands have been ordered, so that they may be given to students who have stepped up and intervened, providing a visible, positive sign on campus.
The idea for the wristbands was not thought up by the creators of the program, but brought to the committee’s attention by a member of the community. Hind deliberately left the program open-ended and unstructured to allow students to shape and mold the initiatives to their specific needs. “Our thought was, why define something that doesn’t need to be restrictive or have parameters? Let those who step forward design it, keeping the program ever-evolving as students come and go.”
Although the coaching staff and faculty are behind the program and its initiatives, being able to actually make an impact on the Hill falls on the shoulders of the Hamilton student body. “I hope our athletes, as well as everyone else in the community, has enough interest and excitement to get involved to help make a difference in defining who we are and what we want to be,” disclosed Hind.
In addition to Jon Hind’s input, two student-athletes were given the opportunity to speak at the meeting and explain the Student Athletic Advisory Committee (S.A.A.C.). While many of our NESCAC counterparts have active S.A.A.C. groups that are heavily involved in philanthropy, leadership initiatives and teambuilding, Hamilton’s committee serves mainly as an advisory group. As a result, despite attending two meetings each academic year, senior S.A.A.C. member Jacob Sheetz-Willard acknowledged that, “many varsity athletes do not know what S.A.A.C. is, or do not really understand its function on campus.”
However, this fall Sheetz-Willard and several of his peers decided they wanted to make a bigger impact on campus. With roughly one in three Hamilton students participating in the varsity athletics program, there exists a massive resource that until now has been untapped for community involvement and service.
The first, and arguably most visible, program the Committee has initiated is the “Bleed Blue” initiative, introduced at the campus-wide meeting through every student-athlete receiving a free t-shirt with the initiative’s moniker across the back. This apparel also helps unify the athletics department by purely writing Hamilton athletics on the front of the tee instead of classifying each individual team. In the near future, the Committee hopes to create a brother/sister program amongst various teams to increase fan turnout at home games, as well as send Hamilton athletes into Clinton to help with the community’s local sports.
Sheetz-Willard recognized that many of Hamilton’s athletic teams already have a positive impact on campus through reaching out to the greater community, “however, we felt that having a single group would get more athletes involved and create more camaraderie between teams.”
“There has already been a lot of enthusiasm from the athletes and we hope to keep this momentum going forward,” said Sheetz-Willard, echoing the same mentality that Hind hoped would infect the general student body. There will be a meeting this Sunday, Feb. 26, at 8 p.m. in the Blood Fitness Center Lounge for anyone with ideas about the program or is interested in getting involved in its implementation.