AMHERST, N.Y. - After a long hiatus due to the outbreak of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum (SALF) returned this semester with a gathering of student-athletes from all three division levels across the United States held in Houston, Texas from Nov. 18 – Nov. 21. Daemen College nominated one representative for this event – senior Monahe Marchione, a mid-distance runner for the indoor and outdoor track and field programs.

A Buffalo native, Marchione will graduate from Daemen College in May 2022 with an undergraduate degree in Business Administration and Sports Management. The forum, Marchione said, was an extension of her leadership expertise she has garnered on campus the past four years.

"If you're not a person who is in touch with leadership and your strengths and finding out about yourself, I feel like it's not something that you would enjoy," said Marchione, who hopes to competes in meets with Daemen track and field this season for the first time in two years following injuries. "Everyone there was already very passionate about what we were doing and they already had the buy-in. There was some pre-work that we had to do beforehand that had to do with the conference, so, if those were things that you weren't interested in, then you clearly weren't going to enjoy the conference."

"I think everyone that I met there was very open and honest and able to have those open conversations because it was something that they were also committed to," Marchione continued. "I still talk to them every day. They were amazing people who all just had a very good sense of awareness and the ability to respect others and be fair and courageous and exhibit those leadership qualities that everyone's looking for."

In a recent interview for daemenwildcats.com, Marchione shared what she learned at the forum; her journey and various roles she's held as a Wildcat student-athlete and her advice for those within the campus community considering getting more involved.
 
How did you first hear about the NCAA SALF event?
 
You are nominated, basically. Any one has the chance to. Usually – for example, I went to a different NCAA conference as well before – so, while there was an application process, obviously, if you're not talking to our (administration), then you wouldn't know about the opportunity and you wouldn't be as close enough for them to ask you if that would be something that you were interested in. It was more of a nomination basis. I specifically learned about it from Hailey Dietrich before she left. I was supposed to go before COVID-19 but, obviously, that did not happen. This was something that Hailey and I had talked about before. I went to the APPLE conference my freshman year (January 2019), so Ziv (Basden of Daemen men's basketball) went to the conference the year before that (2018) and I think she went that year as an admin. We did not this year but we have in the past and (Hailey) was telling me about (SALF) after we talked about the APPLE conference. Those were things that I was interested in and I'm a business major so leadership and development were things that I was already doing around campus and I'm a part of SAAC (Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) on the (executive) board. It was always something that we had talked about and she had told me about but obviously there wasn't a time for it to happen.
 
In your words, what is the NCAA Student-Athlete Leadership Forum about?
 
I'd say it's more about developing your own personal leadership philosophy and learning things about yourself, such as your strengths and weaknesses and things that are important to you versus other people who are also leaders and how those things can come together and what makes you unique versus someone else who may not do things the same exact way but are also considered a leader.
 
How did your personal leadership skills expand through this forum?
 
There were different workshops and "Color Team Sessions." Each session, we were working on something different. Some of them were about bridging conversations and how to handle those and the different tools that you can use to navigate those type of things. Other sessions were about your strengths. We took a CliftonStrengths test and we would talk about our different strengths and what were important to us. In other sessions, we did things such as finding your own personal values, which you solely did on your own by narrowing down a certain number of strengths, by each round, that we had. We also talked about emotional intelligence versus emotional intelligence. Basically, we talked about self-awareness, self-management, relationship management, just all of those aspects as well. We did a lot of group sessions that were about mental health, that were about different school SAACs, learning about (NCAA) Division II, some things that weren't exactly about leadership but about things to take back to campus. We did some community service (while in Houston.)
 
There were a few keynote speakers at this event also. What insights did you take away from their presentations?
 
There were a few of them. There was a U.S. Women's Softball player, Haylie McCleney, who won a (silver) medal in the (Tokyo) Olympics.  She basically talked about leaving your legacy and how her trials and tribulations brought to the point of where she is now on the women's national (softball) team. And then there was Jonathan Sprinkles, who talked more about basically overcoming different obstacles in order to get to where you want to be and that you can accomplish anything you want to accomplish and a lot of things start within yourself and your personal challenges and where you come from and your background and things of that nature.
 
What made Daemen College stand out to you?
 
I think Daemen was always a very homey feel to me. Someone I had known previously was on the track team at the time, so there were times where I was already around them and expose to our campus. There was never a time where I felt out of place or anything like that. I feel like it's more of a 'when you know, you know.' It was always a place where I felt comfortable and I liked the way they introduced the coursework for my major and all of those things. It just kind of came together. And, sports and whatnot, it was just always a nice in-between. It's not a crazy (Division I) sports school but, at the same time, there's also a focus on academics, but at the same time, it's still a competitive school, which is what we talked about a lot at the conference – about (Division II) and being a student and an athlete versus one or the other.
 
Over the course of your track and field career at Daemen, how would you describe your relationship with your coaches and teammates?
 
I was not always the best athlete. I will admit that. I'm not the top runner, in any way, shape or form but I was always very passionate about it. My first year, I was unfortunately very injured and I don't think I ran very much. I was a redshirt year but I ended up winning the Wildcat Award because they said that I had a connection with each of our team members, regardless to what event they did. I think that's really important to me. While I might not be doing the best, I know that there are other people that I can support and even though I might not be competing, that can be the thing that I look forward to more. I feel like a lot of my time here has been more about behind-the-scenes things, as far as making sure that everyone has what they need and that they're not struggling in school or having any issues like that and that they feel supported and reaching out to them. I feel like that's always been my underlying role on the team, in a way.
 
For anyone, on campus or in the WNY community or beyond, that wants to get more involved and be a leader in their own way?
 
If you want to get involved and there are things that you want to do, there's always different people that you can talk to. You have to just reach out and be open and willing to have to – not necessarily hard conversations – but put yourself out there in a way, you know, and go for the things that you want to go for. There's only a very limited time where you get to be a student-athlete and be an athlete and go to forums and to be able to help others and do SAAC service opportunities and things like that… It's important to just reach out and be open and be willing to be a sponge and to absorb all those things while you have the opportunity. And not to be shy or anything because you're doing what you want to do and there are other people who are looking for people like you to step up and become that person that you want to become. I think it's just important to trust yourself and be open and vulnerable to situations and really get the experience out of your four or however many years you're going to be here (at Daemen.) Once you go into your career and take all of those things that you learned and all of those things that you experienced and the things that you've done, you put those things into your job and your family and all of those things… it's like your foundation for your adulthood, in a way. Be open and find those opportunities and go out and get them.
 

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Daemen College features the premier NCAA Division II athletics program in the Buffalo-Niagara region, sponsoring 18 intercollegiate teams. For the latest information on Daemen Athletics, follow the Wildcats via social media on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, or sign up to receive customizable news alerts, e-mail newsletters and weekly schedule alerts.

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