Coe's Winter Awards Banquet Features Special Olympian

From Kelsey Jipp, Coe SAAC:

"Coe's SAAC held our 4th annual Winter Letter Awards Banquet April 27th to recognize Men's and Women's Basketball, Men's and Women's Swimming & Diving, and Wrestling athletes.  Each coach spoke about their team's season and announced their athletes by class so they could be given their IIAC conference certificates and/or varsity letters. All-Region, All-America and All-Academic recipients were also recognized. This year we had a guest speaker come in support of the NCAA's Special Olympics initiative. Traci Long is a Global Messenger for Special Olympics and graciously offered to tell her story and promote more student-athlete involvement in future Special Olympics events. She was able to encourage many athletes to sign up as volunteers at the Coe Special Olympics event, coming up April 14th. It was great having Traci and her positive energy!" (Traci [right] is pictured below with Coe women's basketball coach and senior women's administrator Randi Peterson).

Coe's "Think Pink" Event Highlights Regular-Season Finale

From Kelsey Jipp, Coe SAAC and women's basketball student-athlete:

"On Feb 18th, we had our "Think Pink" game to support and spread awareness of breast cancer. Athletes and faculty joined efforts in baking cookies for our baked goods sale, in which we raised over $200 for breast cancer research. We also had a pink costume contest for students. Here are a couple pics of our student section!"

Wartburg's Unified Sports Day A Big Success

The Wartburg College Athletic Department hosted its 14th annual Unified Sports Day, this past Saturday.

This event brings special needs individuals to campus for a day of fun and games with numerous Wartburg students.

To view the full photo gallery, click here.

To read the story in the Waterloo Courier, click here.

BV Basketball Event Raises Money for Cancer Research

This from BV Senior Women's Administrator Jennifer Thompson:

"We hosted our PINK Breast Cancer Event last Saturday evening at BVU and the SAAC students help me with this event.  I have attached some pictures of the activities at our event. We raised just over $2,000 for the WBCA Kay Yow Cancer Fund! Activities included:  a raffle of seven items, sales of snack mix, pink t-shirts, pink headbands and pink ribbon Tervis Tumblers, a silent auction of about 30 items, a best pink costume contest for BVU students (with prizes) and the BVU Dance Squad performed at both halftimes. Fans were all encouraged to wear pink to the game.  The women's team wore pink warm-up shirts and pink shoe laces, and the officials used their pink whistles."

Check Out the Release on Upcoming Leadership Conference

Looking forward to having some of the Iowa Conference's best in Cedar Rapids this weekend. Click this link:

2012 IIAC Student-Athlete Leadership Conference

Wartburg Takes Advantage of MLK Service Day Opportunity

Student-athletes at Wartburg College showed their volunteer spirit on Martin Luther King Day. Though there were many different service projects, the photos below came from a "Blankets of Love" outreach. The blankets go to young people in need. Wartburg's blankets will be going to Bremwood Lutheran Home in Waverly that has young people living there with a variety of issues (mental health, behavioral problems, etc.). The idea came out of a similar activity at the NCAA Regional Leadership Conference in November.

Luther Fall Sports Camp Video

This post from Luther's SAAC Board, c/o senior Katie Etter:

"Last November, our SAAC group held a three-hour Fall All-Sports Clinic for children ages 4-8.  Sixty kids from the surrounding community and over fifty student-athletes were involved in the event.  The kids were taken from station to station by Luther College swimmers and then played a game or did a drill with team members from Luther’s basketball, soccer, football, volleyball, golf, tennis, baseball/softball, wrestling, and track teams.  We included a snack break halfway through the clinic and each participant was given a water bottle to take home with them. While the kids (and parents) loved every second of the clinic, the Luther athletes had a blast as well giving back to their sports. The All-Sports Clinic provided a good opportunity for Norse athletes to develop their leadership and connect with local youth to maintain a cooperative spirit among the Luther and Decorah community."