University of Minnesota Athletics
Gopher Athletes Silovich and Willey Participate in Big Ten Sportsmanship Conference
7/29/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Hockey
Men's track & field's Luke Silovich and women's hockey's Dagney Willey were University of Minnesota representatives at the Big Ten Sportsmanship Conference this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio. The Minnesota duo were two of 70 participants from across the Big Ten Conference schools to participate in the event, July 25-28 on the Ohio State campus.
The event started with Ohio State President E. Gordon Gee welcoming the student-athletes, while Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany was the keynote speaker on Saturday. Nearly 70 delegates from student organizations, athletic departments and alumni associations from Big Ten schools participated in discussions at Ohio Stadium and the recreation center.
Not only did the athletes discuss what sportsmanship meant to them on the field, but how sportsmanship can be related to coaches, staff and fans. Following seminars and breakout discussions, student-athletes were asked how they can bring back good sportsmanship back to their own schools. The festivities ended at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday.
"It was really beneficial looking at some of the issues that Ohio State had on their campus with their football game day and how they went about fixing the issues that came up there," Dagney Willey said. "I think it will be good information to use to prevent issues when our stadium is complete.
One of the goals we had was implementing what we learned at the conference and bringing back to our campus. We were able to get ideas of how to create student organizations for our campus and for our fan base at sporting events. We hope that we can help provide positive encouragement and have more focus on welcoming our opponents and cheering for our team instead of focusing on negative feedback towards other teams and fans."
