Courtesy of Kirk Reed, Assistant Commissioner of the CACC

New Haven, CT (9/11/08) Eighty-four student-athletes representing the 13 Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (CACC) institutions convened at Georgian Court University on Sunday, Sept. 7, to participate in the first annual Silly Olympics for Wishes. The Silly Olympics, which helped raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, was the brainchild of the CACC Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). With the help of the student-athletes and numerous administrators around the conference, the event was a huge success and raised a significant amount of money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

"The Silly Olympics was an idea that we had as a Conference SAAC to promote sportsmanship and engagement between the student-athletes in our conference, and from the success of the day I think that we accomplished those goals," said Georgian Court's Heather Walker, the CACC's representative to the national SAAC. "It is exciting to see this idea come to life and I hope that we can make it an annual event. It was great to see everyone come together, have fun and truly enjoy the day!"

The group of student-athletes split into 10 teams and created unique team names, with each squad wearing different colored CACC Silly Olympics t-shirts. Student-athletes who might have been rivals on the field of play worked together in events such as Tug-o-War, relay races, dizzy bat and a 3-legged race. The event was followed by a barbeque on the GCU campus.

 The winning team was composed of nine student-athletes, including Buddy Riggs of the Caldwell baseball team, Amanda Feldman of the Wilmington women's basketball team, Emily Horrocks of the Bloomfield women's basketball team, Rob Fisher of the Philadelphia baseball team, Shanice Scully of the Dominican women's basketball team, Brandon Williams of the Chestnut Hill men's basketball team, Karol Gomez of the Georgian Court soccer team and Stedford McLeod of the Nyack men's basketball team. The team received certificates for earning the victory.

  "The CACC Silly Olympics for Wishes was a great event for the student-athletes who attended and the conference as a whole," said CACC Associate Commissioner, Bernadette Macca.  "The event was planned by a CACC SAAC sub committee, and the SAAC members from host Georgian Court put in a lot of hard work setting up the actual event.  I give these student-athletes a lot of credit for having a vision of what they wanted and then putting in the time and effort necessary to make it a reality.  We are excited to make a donation as a conference on behalf of the 13 institutions to the Make-A-Wish foundation with the proceeds from the event."

"It was a perfect day and it was great to see so many student-athletes representing each of the 13 conference sports," said Lynn Tubman, Associate Director of Athletics at Philadelphia University. "Everyone had a great time. The athletes had the opportunity to interact and walk away with an appreciation for what it means to be a part of the conference.  It is definitely an event that should take place every year."