Between record-setting viewership and new name, image and likeness legislation, a new era of college sports has begun in which collegiate athletes have more control—and more starpower—than ever before.
But before the Supreme Court ruled that Caitlin Clark, or any other student-athlete for that matter, had the right to sign a multi-million deal with State Farm, groups of student-athletes across the country had already banded together to issue joint statements in support of the policy.
These groups, made entirely of volunteer athlete representatives, are called Student Athlete Advisory Committees (SAACs), and every NCAA-sanctioned athletics department—from the Florida Gators to the UChicago Maroons—must have one.
With half a million athletes across three divisions and over 1,000 member schools making up the NCAA, SAAC members at the institutional, conference and national levels are advocates for their teammates, leaders among the greater athletic departments and a link between programs and their surrounding communities.
There are numerous student leadership groups for UChicago athletes, including the Order of the C and The Women's Athletic Association—male and female letterwinning coalitions, respectively—some of the country's oldest associations of their kinds. But only SAAC requires an application to join.
What a SAAC does varies from campus to campus. At UChicago, the organization focuses most on student-athlete development and advocacy, in addition to facilitating administrative tasks like voting on NCAA policies. Recent UChicago SAAC-sponsored projects include networking events, mental performance workshops and a department-wide award show, aptly named "The Maroonies."
"The main question we ask ourselves is: how can we help our athletes?" said co-president and former volleyball player Maya Patel, AB’24, about SAAC's mission.
This outlook is evident in the monthly meetings, which begin with a roundtable conversation amongst its over 40 members on their respective teams' recent wins, events or news, followed by team representatives voicing any facility-related concerns.
From there, during the last school year, co-presidents Patel and rising fourth-year student and wrestler Danny Lingen would lead the discussion on upcoming SAAC programming, such as an intersport movie night, this year's iteration of the Maroonies awards or the organization's Black History Month social media campaign, for example.
The meeting concludes with the members splitting into seven committees, each led by an executive board member and focused on a specific aspect of student-athlete life. These committees range from a mental health and wellness committee, which invites a sports psychologist to lead workshops on performance anxiety, to a community engagement committee, which organizes department-wide winter clothes and equipment drives. These committees enable student-athletes to concentrate on areas of athlete development they are passionate about.