Bravence Receives Most Valuable Gopher Award

Nov. 3, 2014

The University of Minnesota and the Gopher athletics student-athlete development program will recognize one male and one female student-athlete each month, who have gone above and beyond the call of duty as ambassadors of the maroon and gold. New this year, Gopher athletics will announce its 'Most Valuable Gophers' at the start of each month. This month's award goes out to men's swimming & diving's Ben Bravence along with softball's Erica Meyer, for their efforts throughout the year, specifically of the recent success of the inaugural Pro Day, held at TCF Bank Stadium.

Criteria for the award will be based on one or more of the three student-athlete development areas:

â€¢ Leadership - leadership roles on athletic team, Student-Athlete Advisory Committee representatives, student group participation, campus panels, team hosts or other roles as ambassadors of the Maroon and Gold, campus committees

â€¢ Professional Development - embracing career opportunities on campus and programs offered by the athletics department, to include: internships, volunteer and part-time employment focused on career development.

â€¢ Commitment to Service - volunteering through MAGIC and on their own in the community (may or may not be career related). All hours considered are logged through the University of Minnesota system.

October 2014 Male MVG: Ben Bravence (men's swimming & diving)

Ben Bravence, along with community outreach coordinator Linda Roberts, was the driving force for Minnesota's inaugural Pro Day, held Oct. 23 at TCF Bank Stadium. With the help of Bravence and Roberts, over 45 local Minnesota businesses met with current Gopher student-athletes to build relationships, network and grow professionally for life after athletics. Bravence was the chair committee of the event and began the Pro Day planning just since May 2014.

Q: What your role has been and how involved with Pro Day?

Ben Bravence: It stemmed from an event that I was not able to go to earlier. I went in and talked to Peyton Owens. I asked him about establishing something more concrete that we can do for professional development with student athletes. We had the conversation and I kept going in week after week, until finally we decided on doing Pro Day. We got Linda Roberts (director of community outreach) involved and went from there.

We had meetings once or twice a week and when we got to the school year, and we had everything set. Linda handled connecting with the companies and I worked more on logistics with company information, recording surveys and filling in any role that needed to be filled. I would say that we all really did our part to pull this together. Peyton and I decided we were going to do LinkedIn photos. Erica Meyer, who's the other student athlete chair, did a fabulous job keeping me in check.

Seeing it all play out, are you satisfied with how everything turned out?

BB: Absolutely. I was nervous that it would be kind of a ghost town up there with all of the companies coming in for this event. As student-athletes went up to the event, you could see all the smiles on their faces, talking to these employers is a great feeling. And it's definitely satisfying.

As a junior, were you getting a chance to get out there and mingle with businesses as well?

BB: I was running around a bit during the event, but that's ok. I am already in the interview process at a few places, but happy to have this event and make sure it ran smoothly.

What's the plan for next year?

BB: We're going to make it bigger and better. This year we have 45 companies and now want to increase it as we go. For working on this just since May, hopefully we have double the amount of companies next year. I'm hoping these companies all leave with very positive experiences, and they come back next year along with 45 new companies. So yes, we will definitely have it next year and go forward with it.

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