JEROMESVILLE— Seventy-one student athletes from the Wayne County Athletic League participated recently in a Leadership Summit at Hillsdale High School.
Throughout the day, the athletes interacted with each other in groups — ranging in size from two to all 71 — through structured, hands-on activities utilizing the provided manipulates to achieve a goal.
“This was a good chance to get together with the other schools in the county,” said Waynedale head baseball coach Justin McDowell. “High school is very sports-centric. I hope this provides strategies they can use outside of sports, life lessons for when they venture out into the world.”
Event coordinator and Hillsdale High School principal, Dave Baker designed the fast-paced, high-level engagement program to develop stronger high school student leaders.
“I believe in the importance of growing and developing great leaders,” Baker said.
He spearheaded the experience, meeting with local school administrators before the start of school to propose the idea. Baker reports he has coordinated well over 100 leadership summits for a variety of school-related and business groups.
“He is a great leader and is eager to share his love for students,” Hillsdale athletic director Jodi Long said of Baker. “He has great energy and is a positive addition to our district.
“I hope even though they are competitors on the field, they can make some new friends. I was hoping our students could be engaged and active participants in the team-building activities with student leaders from our league schools.”
Smithville Athletic Director Jen Shutt shared hopes that students would learn to “be a leader in their own way.” She described herself as “super excited” with the day because it “fit perfectly” with Smithville’s initiative, called “The Leader in Me,” which is used to cultivate leaders at her school.
“It’s nice that somebody local took the initiative to put something like this together and to include the conference schools,” Chippewa principal Matt Rodriguez said, noting they previously had to go to Columbus for this type of event.
Nine activities focused on team building, problem solving, trust building, brainstorming, developing consensus and understanding the importance of effective communication skills.
“I hope they take back to their teams that they don’t just have to be a [team] captain to be a leader,” Rittman Athletic Director Joe Staley said. “They can be an integral part of the team in any role.”
Staley indicated his district still attended the Columbus event, taking six students there. The Hillsdale program allowed them to send nine other students, maximizing the number of students gaining the benefits of leadership training. Due to Rittman’s small size with athletes participating in multiple sports, those 15 students were associated with 30 sports teams, covering all that Rittman offers.
Schools were given latitude on how to select the students they brought and how many to bring. Most chose through a collaboration of administrators, AD and coaches, with several narrowing their choices by selecting those who best possessed the ability to share what they learned.
“First of all, they should look at it as a privilege and honor to be nominated to attend,” Norwayne boys basketball coach Brian West said. “This takes them to the next level of being a leader, so they can take it back to spread to their teams, school and community.”
The activities completed included a communication exercise in which two students sat back to back, one of whom looked at an image projected onto a screen and gave verbal directions to arrange Tangram pieces into the same shape.
Two activities addressed creating trust and building communication skills by blindfolding one student. In one of the activities, a partner verbally led the first through an obstacle course. In the second, the partner directed the blindfolded athlete to pick up a certain colored ball from several, collecting as many as possible in a given time, while other pairs attempted the same. At the end of the stated time, the blindfolded athlete was then instructed to throw the balls at the other blindfolded students, who were eliminated if hit.
In other activities students were not allowed to communicate verbally or physically in order to create teamwork and trust that someone else can provide what is needed for the success of the team.
Finally, the day closed with a Leadership Personality Profile, in which leaders learned about their personal strengths and weaknesses.
Baker reported hearing comments from students that they appreciated the opportunity to meet and make friends with students from other schools. “They enjoyed the hands-on approach, the challenges and the dialogue with each other,” he said.
The event was sponsored by Hillsdale High School.
