GoHeels Exclusive: UNC and espnW Team Up For Campus Conversation

By Pat James, GoHeels.com

Like so many of her fellow classmates, Bryana Nguyen, a senior on the North Carolina women's golf team, has experienced some nervousness about what awaits after her May graduation.

But Monday night, her concerns were eased.

Nguyen and more than 200 other UNC female student-athletes and their coaches gathered inside the Blue Zone Concourse Club as Carolina Athletics and espnW partnered to host a Campus Conversations session. The event focused on generating a discussion with and among Tar Heel female student-athletes about how to prepare for postgraduate life.

Carol Stiff, ESPN's vice president of women's sports programming, said UNC was the 19th campus to host the Campus Conversations program since its April 2016 inception.

"At the ACC spring meetings (in May 2017), Duke was the only school we had visited at the time," Stiff said. "As I was telling them about the program, all the women were asking, 'How do we get one?' We then went out to Boston College, we just left Notre Dame and Syracuse last semester, and now we're here.

"People are hearing about it and want to be a part of it and want us to come and bring the program to their school."

The program includes a panel discussion, Q&A and breakout sessions. All feature distinguished female student-athlete alumnae and ESPN employees.

Monday's panel included Paige Hanson (2014, lacrosse), Courtney Bumpers Grande (2005, gymnastics), Malaika Underwood (2003, volleyball) and Stacie McCollum (ESPN senior director of programming and acquisitions). The panel was moderated by espnW's Julie Foudy, the former captain of the U.S. women's national soccer team.

Just before the panel began, Chancellor Carol Folt addressed the crowd.

"When I was coming through school, Title IX was so important," Folt said. "It wasn't just athletics, but there weren't women faculty members. It was just such different world. When women started having their place, things started changing. And of course, they're still changing, and every generation has its own battles that it wants to fight.

"I just can't tell you the joy it gives me to look out at this room of so many of UNC's finest."

An amazing event hosted by @espnw helping provide mentorship and advice for female athletes! Thanks for coming @chancellorfolt! @goheels

A post shared by UNC Fencing (@uncfencing) on Apr 9, 2018 at 4:37pm PDT

Foudy was handed the microphone moments later and opened the panel discussion. Over the next 30 minutes, the panelists explained how their student-athlete experiences prepared them for their careers.

Some of the advice the current Tar Heels received was to leverage their strengths as student-athletes, to embrace the career changes that will likely occur as they progress through their lives and to not be afraid of taking risks.

The topic that perhaps produced the most discussion was the importance of self-promotion, or, as Foudy called it, "owning our awesome."

"I do think it's very difficult to do because you feel like you're bragging, and nobody wants to brag," said Grande, who now serves as litigation counsel for Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tenn. "But that's sometimes how you get ahead."

Nguyen said this piece of advice resonated with her.

"I don't why, but women just don't advocate for themselves or stand up for themselves," said Nguyen, the co-president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council. "Just because there are so many powerful men out there, we're just like, 'Oh, shoot, we're just always the second.'

"Being a student-athlete, being at UNC, we do have a lot of tools in our toolbox and a lot of connections, but we don't see it. Getting reminded of that here really helps and just boosts a lot of my confidence and that of the other ladies here."

Once the panel discussion ended, the Q&A session began. Among the questions asked was how to fight the stereotype of being a "bossy woman" and still be assertive.

"I think you just have to trust in yourself," said McCollum, who attended and played volleyball at Concordia University in Austin, Texas. "You're not going to be able to control everyone's perception or opinion of you if you're strong and you're committed and you're working hard.

"We don't use 'bossy' in my household. I have an 8-year-old (daughter), and I hate the connotation. She's strong, she's a leader, and that's how I try to think about it."

Inspiring advice from the empowering panelists of ESPN W Campus Conversations. Thank you @ChancellorFolt @GoHeels @espnW #espnwatUNC pic.twitter.com/63gvx5RJOU
— Bryana Nguyen (@bryananguyen) April 10, 2018

The current female student-athletes then split into four groups based on academic year for breakout sessions. Those were led by the panelists, Foudy and three other former UNC student-athletes: Charlotte Smith (1999, basketball), Michelle Ikoma (2014, gymnastics) and Katie Loovis (1999, lacrosse).

During this time period, Nguyen said the seniors in her group discussed what's next, whether they're planning to keep playing their sport or move on from it. She said Foudy and Grande re-emphasized the importance of maintaining a support system, one of the panel topics.

Meanwhile, in the freshman session, women's basketball player Leah Church said everyone shared the most difficult challenges they had faced in their transition from high school to college. Others then offered suggestions.

Although some of the advice offered during the panel discussion and Q&A might not immediately benefit Church and her fellow classmates, she said she still learned from it.

"It kind of showed you that you can't really make up your mind about what you're going to do right now, especially as a freshman," Church said. "I think only one (panelist) pursued the major (connected to the career) that they went in.

"So I think it's important being open-minded going through your four years and just being ready for anything. You don't know what you're going to be interested in four years down the road."

At that point, with her own graduation looming, Church might reflect on Monday's Campus Conversations session. And maybe she'll start experiencing less nervousness.

More on the panelists and breakout session leaders:

Paige Hanson: Hanson is an institutional equity sales and trading analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. An attacker on the UNC women's lacrosse team, she was a member of the 2013 national championship squad and received multiple academic awards. Among those was the 2013 NCAA Elite 89 Award, given to the player on an NCAA semifinalist team with the highest cumulative grade point average.

Courtney Bumpers Grande: Grande serves as litigation counsel for Community Health Systems in Franklin, Tenn. She won the floor exercise at the 2005 NCAA Championships with a perfect score of 10.0. At the 2004 NCAA Championships, she was the floor exercise co-champion. After graduating from UNC in 2006, she earned her juris doctor degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Malaika Underwood: Underwood is the vice president of licensing at The Brandr Group, a boutique brand agency that partners with prominent brands, corporate trademarks, celebrities and events to cultivate, diversify and realize intellectual property through professional brand management and licensing endeavors. She's also an infielder on the U.S. women's national baseball team. An outside hitter on the UNC volleyball team, she was named the 2001 ACC Tournament MVP and finished her career ranked seventh in school history for digs.

Stacie McCollum: McCollum graduated from Concordia University in Austin, Texas, where she was a defensive specialist on the volleyball team. As ESPN's senior director of programming and acquisitions, she oversees the programming strategy, content acquisitions and day-to-day business operations of the Longhorn Network. She serves as the conduit to ESPN and the primary liaison to the University of Texas athletic department and overall university. She also serves as the principal contact to the Atlantic Coast Conference for the upcoming ACC Network.

Charlotte Smith: Smith graduated from UNC in 1999 with a degree in sociology. She had a stellar career for the Tar Heels, the highlight of which was hitting the biggest shot in program history: a buzzer-beating three-pointer to win the 1994 national championship. She also had a record-23 rebounds in that game and was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player. She earned many honors during her career, including All-America and ACC Championship MVP, and went on to play in the WNBA and also for USA Basketball before turning her attention to coaching. She recently completed her seventh season as the head women's basketball coach at Elon. Prior to that position, she spent nine years as an assistant coach on the UNC staff.

Michelle Ikoma: Ikoma is in her second stint as a Carolina student and is now a first-year student in the UNC School of Medicine. She completed her undergraduate degree in 2014, earning a double major in business administration and exercise & sport science with a minor in mathematics. She held leadership roles on the gymnastics team and within the UNC community, and earned honors including the Jim Tatum Award, which goes to one UNC student-athlete each year who excels in all areas. After graduation, she worked as an associate at Red Ventures in Charlotte before beginning medical school.

Katie Loovis: Loovis is vice president for external affairs at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce. She returned to Chapel Hill in September of 2017 after holding various positions in government, business and the nonprofit sector in Washington, D.C. She graduated from UNC in 1999 with a degree in communication studies and then earned a master's degree in public administration. She was captain of the Tar Heel women's lacrosse team and also played for USA Lacrosse, leading the Under-19 team to a World Cup silver medal.

GoHeels Exclusive: UNC and espnW Team Up For Campus Conversation

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