Peach Belt Hosts Women In Athletics Seminar. (Updated With Video)

AUGUSTA, GA – The Peach Belt Conference hosted its second annual Women in Athletics seminar on Thursday at Augusta State University to provide female student-athletes who may want to pursue a career in collegiate athletics the opportunity to interact with a wide range of professional women in sports. Representatives from all 13 PBC member institutions were in attendance for a morning panel discussion and afternoon keynote address from Dr. Joni Comstock, senior vice president of championships for the NCAA.

Participants were first treated to a morning panel consisting of Germaine McAuley, athletic director at Spelman College; Taylor Mott, head volleyball coach at Flagler; women’s basketball official Kristi Weed; Andrea Tyndall, assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of South Carolina; Cheryl Watts, game operations manager at Georgia Tech and Tammy Stout, executive director of the Augusta Sports Council.

“I’m very interested in a career in college athletics,” said Kincaid Schmidt of Flagler College, who plays on the women’s soccer team and serves as president of the school’s Student Athlete Advisory Committee. “Its an opportunity for me to see what I can do with my educational background and how I can apply that to a future in athletics. I think there are things that need to be followed up on in gender equity, but I absolutely think there are more positive roads for students like me that these women have paved for us.”

“We need tremendous people, male and female, in leadership roles in the near future,” said Dr. Comstock, who served as an athletic director at two Division I institutions before joining the NCAA three years ago. “Its been very impressive that the Peach Belt put this event together today to encourage young women to step up to take a leadership role in higher education and the future of intercollegiate athletics.”

Dr. Comstock spoke to the group for about 45 minutes and encouraged the group to get involved with their athletic departments.

“Student-athletes are special,” said Dr. Comstock. “What I’m hoping is that we can get an number of them to select athletics and excel as professionals in this area. I know with the training they’ve gotten in intercollegiate athletics that they be successful in any profession. We’re at a point where we’ve lost a number of women who entered the field 10, 20 years ago and have now exited. As we see these young student-athletes go through our high school and college programs, if they don’t see a lot of women, they don’t see it as an option. So we have to talk it up, we have to sell it and that’s one of the things I’m going to talk about.”

“The biggest thing for me is the enthusiasm these women have for their positions,” said Schmidt. “As busy as they are and as hard as they work, they seem really excited and enthusiastic about what they are doing.”

Dr. Joni Comstock, senior vice president for championships at the NCAA, addresses the women in athletics seminar.

The morning panel (L to R): Tammi Stout, Kristi Weed, Cheryl Watts, Andrea Tyndall, Taylor Mott, Germaine McAuley.

Participants take a break in between sessions on Thursday.