Nov. 28, 2007

In an effort to highlight the leadership and good works of the student-athletes in the conference, the ACC SAAC began the SAAC in ACCtion initiative to provide on-line articles about the SAAC programs at the league's 12 member institutions. The goal of this initiative is to shed light on the great things our student-athletes are doing to affect significant positive change on campus and in our communities. Every two weeks, the SAAC leaders from a different school will provide a SAAC in ACCtion update on how their program is getting involved. When reading these articles, we hope that it is evident that their efforts to give back result in so much more.

"Even when there's legislation that doesn't apply to certain sports, you still find a lot of support and suggestions from those sports and just a genuine want to help other sports programs." --Marcus Ginyard
North Carolina's Student-Athlete Development Web Site Junior basketball player Marcus Ginyard is one of North Carolina's two representatives to the ACC SAAC and is very active within UNC's own chapter. Ginyard took a few minutes to chat with theACC.com about SAAC's initiatives and his experiences. What is the overall goal of UNC's SAAC? Our overall goal is to be a positive and easy-to-work-with mediator between the student-athletes, UNC's athletic faculty, and the ACC's athletic staff. Our SAAC has always been exclusively an advisory group that provides information and feedback to athletic administration and its teams. Track and field athletes attend the student-athlete graduation ceremony. How is your SAAC set up? We have an executive committee, which has eight members - the president, vice president, secretary, and five officers. Then we have at least two members from each sport as general members of the SAAC. We focus on legislation and student-athlete welfare. We have a completely separate organization on campus - Carolina Outreach - which is solely committed to community service. There are a lot of people that are in both. We've done a couple of things, though. Two years ago, we sent money to help aid Hurricane Katrina victims. Also, a Carolina baseball player's house burned down while they were at a tournament and we set up a fund and sent his family some money to help rebuild the house. What student-athlete welfare issues are you currently focusing on? Sports medicine is the big one that we're talking about right now. We're trying to find good places around campus to transfer our sports medicine facilities to make them more accessible campus-wide and help the staff meet our athletic needs a little better. It's tough when some sports are sharing training rooms, so we're trying to expand and make it a little easier for sports medicine to really support our athletic department. Men's basketball coach Roy Williams speaks at the student-athlete graduation ceremony. What issues do you feel that SAAC has really had an impact on? Priority registration for classes is definitely a big one. We currently do not have priority registration but we are working on it. SAAC members have been instrumental in collecting data from their teammates and other schools in the ACC and presenting to athletics administration in our SAAC meetings. The proposal is currently in the hands of the Faculty Committee on Athletics. What types of programs does SAAC sponsor? One thing that we just started last year is a senior graduation for our athletes. We found that a lot of spring athletes are gone at their respective championships and they have to miss graduation. We had the chancellor and Dick Baddour (AD) come and Roy Williams was our keynote speaker. It was a great experience for our graduating seniors who missed the regular ceremony. Our leadership groups do most of the planning for other events, such as the Welcome Back Picnic, All-Sports Banquets, etc. How did you personally get involved with SAAC? My assistant coach asked me to do it. That was my freshman year, and I've been with SAAC ever since. Can you talk a bit about your experiences as an ACC SAAC representative? It's hard. I mean, this is my first year, but it's been exciting to get a little more involved with it and just to see how you can actually make a difference and represent your school and athletes. (I see) what they want changed and voice my opinion on legislation that's coming up. It's been a great experience for me, having a leadership role in the athletic community. Student-athlete welcome back picnic. How do you feel your time on UNC's SAAC and as an ACC SAAC representative will help you after graduation? Like I said, it's just a tremendous opportunity to be put into a leadership position. You have a responsibility to get messages from the ACC and be able to relay them to your athletes, to represent your athletes in a positive way - the way they would like to be represented to the ACC - and it's also great for your communication skills ... you have to be able to present information to a governing body. If there was something you would like the public to know about UNC's SAAC and its student-athletes, what would it be? The biggest thing is that I feel our SAAC is (well-supported by the athletes) and is extremely supportive of our sports programs. Even when there's legislation that doesn't apply to certain sports, you still find a lot of support and suggestions from athletes in those other sports and just a genuine desire to help other sports programs. I feel like we have a very close-knit group of people that work very well together.