Kent State University, Career Athletes Connect Athletes with Mentors and Business Organizations
9/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | General
Kansas City, Kan. – The Kent State University Athletic Department and Career Athletes have recently agreed to a partnership providing student-athletes a truly unique resource for career development and professional networking.Â
"Career Athletes is a tremendous service that each and every one of our more than 400 student-athletes should take advantage of," said Joel Nielsen, Director of Athletics at Kent State University. "Not only does it educate them on how to best position themselves to get a job upon graduation, it also provides mentors, ample networking opportunities and the ability to help them find companies that prefer to hire former student-athletes."
Over the past 13 years, Career Athletes has conducted over 1,000 training and development seminars at universities throughout the country providing much needed career education for over 275,000 student-athletes. In addition to their proprietary training and development seminars, Career Athletes builds and maintains customized career networking web sites for individual university athletic departments providing additional career education, mentors, access to career opportunities and potential employers upon graduation, and a platform to connect with athletic alumni who are encouraged to join the network as mentors and/or job seekers.
"It's obvious that the administration at the Kent State University cares about its student-athletes beyond their playing days and graduation, and we are excited to be partnered with such an outstanding institution," said Chris Smith CEO and President of Career Athletes. "Due to the demanding nature of collegiate athletics, these athletes face a unique set of challenges regarding career development not typically experienced by the general student-body. The current economic environment will provide even greater challenges for today's student-athletes to overcome, making career development more important than ever."
Kent State University is no stranger to success as indicated by additional academic and athletic achievements:
- 5 Top 20 NCAA Finishes – Field Hockey, Wrestling, Gymnastics, Men's Golf and Baseball.
- 9 MAC Championships – Regular Season (Field Hockey, Men's Basketball, Baseball, Wrestling) and Tournament (Field Hockey, Women's Outdoor Track & Field, Men's Golf, Women's Golf, Baseball)
- 1 National Coach of the Year – Brice Biggin, Gymnastics.
- 11 MAC Players of the Year
- 3 MAC Freshmen of the Year
- 12 All-Americans
- 34 First Team All-MAC, 37 Second Team All-MAC, 4 Third Team All-MAC, 1 Honorable Mention All-MAC
- Won the Mid-American Conference's Reese Trophy (excellence in men's sports) for the sixth time and for the third straight year.
- Top MAC finisher in the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup for the 11th time in 12 years and the 14th time in the 18-year history of the award.Â
About Career Athletes, LLC:
Career Athletes is the leading provider of a wide range of dedicated career development services and software within collegiate athletics. Since the inception of our roots back in 1998-to-date, athletes in every sport, from over 1,400 individual colleges and universities nationwide, have utilized Career Athletes as a valuable tool in their transition from athletics to the workplace.
Career Athletes possesses the largest member based community of current/alumni student-athletes, representing a growing legion of athletes, athletic departments and hundreds of national, regional and local employers. Today, our on-campus training and development seminars to student-athletes are the most relied upon in the nation, with over 1,000 seminars conducted and over 275,000 student-athletes educated on-campus within college athletic departments at the NCAA, NAIA and Junior Colleges level.
