Student Athlete Advisory Committee (S.A.A.C.)

On Wednesday, April 6, 2005, the Athletics Department celebrated National Student-Athlete Day, which is a day to honor student-athletes who have achieved excellence in academics and athletics, while making significant contributions to the community.

All student-athletes, coaches, administrators, and staff members joined together for dinner, music, and games, including a trivia game, and even a few games of dodge ball.

In addition a number of awards were distributed to a select number of student-athletes in recognition for their exemplary effort and achievement over the past year. The Male and Female Scholar Athlete awards were given to Philip Burkart of the Men’s Cross Country/Track team and Regan Pettijohn of the Women’s Basketball team for having achieved the highest cumulative GPA among all men and women athletes, respectively. The Male and Female Strength and Conditioning Athlete awards of the Year were presented to Football player, Calogero Pagano and Softball player, Liz Hammel and the Pride, Hustle, and Desire Award was presented to Paul Racines of Men’s Soccer. Baseball player, Dan Potocki received the Gael of the Year award for his academic achievements, community involvement and demonstration o f leadership and sportsmanship, which best exemplifies what it means to be an Iona College Gael.

National Student-Athlete Day was created by the National Consortium for Academics and Sports (NCAS) and Northeastern University’s Sport in Society, and has been celebrated annually on April 6th since 1987.

Pictures from this event:
Members of the football team at National Student-Athlete Day	The women’s basketball team enjoys dinner
Rowing coaches Kelli Norton and John Cifu with various members of the men’s and women’s teams	Coach McDermott and the golf team
Chris Vidale (water polo), Marcos Monteagudo (men’s soccer), Shelby Erb (volleyball) and Melissa Yeagley (women’s basketball) test their knowledge of Iona Athletics trivia	Athletics Director Patrick Lyons speaks to the student-athletes
Assistant Athletic Director for Academics, Nigel Roberts with Female Scholar Athlete, Regan Pettijohn	Strength and Conditioning Award recipients, Liz Hammel, Paul Racines, and Calogero Pagano with coach Ted Perlak
Coach Mick Byrne with members of the Men’s Cross Country and Track team	Football players Greg Asplint, Jeff Greene, Mike Biehl, Matt Miller, and Chris Flosi sport their National Student-Athlete Day t-shirts
Men’s Basketball coaches Sam Worthen, Vin Parise, and Jeff Ruland with Assistant Athletics Director, Ryan Satalin at National Student-Athlete Day