Virginia Jennings Attends NCAA Leadership Conference

Virginia Jennings Attends NCAA Leadership Conference

The women's basketball player was one of 302 student-athletes from across the country

Women's basketball player Virginia Jennings represented Utah State University at the seventh annual NCAA Leadership Conference, May 25-29 at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort and the Disney Wide World of Sports Complex in Lake Buena Vista, Fla.

A total of 302 student-athletes from across the country were selected to participate in the conference. The conference is designed to enhance student-athletes' leadership and communication skills and to enable them to become more effective leaders and motivators when they return to their campuses. The conference also provides them with exercises to enhance their decision-making and problem-solving skills and improve planning and priority management.

"It was so awesome," said Jennings. "I spent five days with the most driven, ambitious, smart people. From 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., we were pumped full of leadership ideas. Everyone got along so well — race, ethnicity, religion, whatever - didn't matter. Our ultimate goal was to bring back an idea to implement on our campus, and we were shown how to cultivate, plan and institute that idea."

Jennings's plan, still in development, is to work with administrators to develop a workshop to help students coming to Utah State deal with the culture shock many face. "Because this is such a unique place, and we have so many different backgrounds on campus - urban kids, out of state kids, kids of different religions and different races - I think it would be helpful to give them an idea of how to adjust."

Jennings, a member of the women's basketball team, is a junior biology major. A native of Hastings, Mich., she transferred to Utah State from the University of Buffalo where she was active in student-athlete programs , including Student-Athlete Mentors (SAMs). At Utah State, Jennings has continued her leadership in SAMs and is also active in Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).

The daughter of Archie and Mattie Jennings of Nashville, Mich., Jennings was one of 1,172 applicants for the conference. She is the eighth Utah State student-athlete to attend the conference, as gymnasts Deanna Palmer and Melissa Torres attended the 1997 event and golfer Mitch Harris and women's track athlete Jamie Hall participated in the 1998 conference. Soccer player Emily Sutherland attended in 1999, basketball player Brennan Ray went in 2000 and softball's Breanne (Nickle) Smith was at the 2001 event.