Sarah Cusack, Senior, University of Southern Maine, Softball

Cusack is the Chair of the Little East Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and is a member of the Southern Maine Softball team.  Through out the 2010-2011 academic year, Cusack will post blogs to www.littleeast.com.

February 11, 2011

Being a Division III athlete is something to be proud of, we play for our love of the sport, not because we are getting handed scholarships and great offers; sure, that would be awesome if I could play Division I, but playing at the Division III level I am able to have a life that is outside of athletics. I am able to be involved with everything from groups at school to volunteering opportunities. On top of all this I also enjoy the small classrooms size and the fact that my professors know my name (sometimes). I am proud to play Division III sports and to be a member of the Little East Conference (LEC), being one of the most competitive conferences in the northeast. And yes, sometimes it is really frustrating playing against some of the better teams, and when you walk off the field/court, one might wish that they did as well as them! But that’s what makes it fun- I would not want to be in a conference where one team always dominated and every game was a blowout (what fun would that be!!).  For us seniors, in two and half months we will be starting a new chapter in our lives; but looking back I can say that I would not have changed my college career, in sports or in the classroom!

January 20, 2011  

The Little East Conference SAAC had our annual meeting in Providence, RI on December 12-13. We started the conference at Dave and Busters, for those of you that do not know what Dave and Busters is, it a grown up chucky cheese. I think this is great activity where the schools become familiar with each other, but it gets a little competitive as to who can win the most tickets. This conference wide meeting of 8 intuitions decided to take on a new stance on sportsmanship as well as adopt a program started right here on my home front called C.A.R.E.  I am super excited about both of these projects. I will get back to C.A.R.E but to start off I want to talk about our speaker, Rob Miller. This man is incredible if you have never heard him, he literally makes you want to change your life and become a better person! He speaks a lot about leadership and respect, and how to become an effective leader and be on a great team by reaching team potential. I truly believe that every person in that room learned something that they wanted to bring back to there school! As stated before the conference decided to take on C.A.R.E. (Courtesy, Attitude, Respect, Everywhere).It is a simple instinctive to bring back the curtsey and respect that we have lost touch with in our society today. We have a band that has C.A.R.E. right on it and you sign a contract if you want to come on board and pay $1 to buy into the cause.  Each school will hopefully be getting their hands on the band soon. The band is going to be a light blue band with pink lettering thanks to Doug from Plymouth State who came up with the idea of supporting the two causes the LEC sponsors the most (light blue) Prostate cancer and (pink) for Breast Cancer.

Now to the start of the semester winter sports are still in season and spring sports are just getting underway. This semester there are some pretty big games and I am sure there will definitely be some upsets, I wish all 8 schools the best of luck to the start of the 2011 semester. Also remember to always show sportsmanship on the court, track, and on the fields!