From The Desk Of This Month's Guest Writer...
 

Hello Wildcat fans! I am excited to be featured as a guest author to Paw Prints. My name is Brandi Guerinot, and I am the Associate Athletic Director for Compliance and Student Services. In this role I am responsible for overseeing Daemen's compliance and academic services department.   This means I make sure the coaches and student-athletes are all well educated about NCAA Division II rules and of course, that they are following these rules. I also oversee two fantastic staff members, Carol Bartlo and Mame Yaa Ankoma-Mensa, who work to ensure our student-athletes succeed both in the classroom and the community.  

A lot of people wonder how I got into the role of compliance. As a former student-athlete on the rowing team at George Washington University, I knew in college I wanted a career in intercollegiate athletics so I could help future student-athletes have the same enriching experiences I did. After graduate school at The Ohio State University, I embarked on a compliance career in Division I. Finding my way to Daemen College and Division II has been an exciting point in my career. Division II is unique in its combination of having student-athletes who are involved in the classroom, their sport and also campus and the community.

So now that you know a little bit about my role in the athletics department, I'd like to touch on the role compliance and student services plays in the athletic department. My staff and I are definitely a behind the scenes crew.  Though you will see us in the stands or on the field cheering, our work is all done in meetings with coaches and student-athletes, and with our colleagues across campus. We wear many hats in our roles: teacher, advisor, sounding board and disciplinarian.
 
NCAA rules require us to monitor academic eligibility of all our student-athletes, but we do not just monitor our student-athletes' academic success, we celebrate it. This past fall we had an overall student athlete GPA of 3.12, including seven student-athletes with a 4.0 GPA. At a recent home basketball game, two of our seven 4.0 student-athletes honored a professor who they felt contributed to their academic success: Dr. George Siefert, Associate Professor and Department Chair in Social Work and Sociology and Dr. Simona Carrubba, Assistant Professor in Natural Sciences.

The world of the NCAA can be confusing not just for fans, but even for coaches, student-athletes, college employees and high school students who are thinking about continuing their athletic career in college. There are hundreds of rules, which affect each group in different ways and they often change from one year to the next. Many people do not know that NCAA rules are not created by the NCAA but actually are voted upon by the schools. Just this past January, Division II adopted new rules regarding financial aid, practice hours and recruiting. Some of these changes went into effect immediately and some won't go into effect until 2018.
 
Thank you for your support of Daemen Athletics, and thank you for reading! I hope this brief letter gives you a little insight into the daily operation and focus of our compliance and student services office.  If you have any questions or comments about the NCAA or Daemen Athletics please feel free to email me at bguerino@daemen.edu.  Go Wildcats!



Brandi Guerinot
Associate Athletic Director Compliance & Student Services