By Jonathon Eyre
The importance of sportsmanship as well as projecting a positive image of student-athletes is what BYU”s Student Athlete Advisory Committee is emphasizing this year.
Jeremy Kemp from Farmington, Davis County, a senior majoring in Business Management, is this year”s co-chair of advisory committee. Kemp is also a pole-vaulter on the track team.
Sportsmanship was an initiative proposed by the Mountain West Conference this year and that is why the committee is focusing its energy in that direction, Kemp said.
“It”s called the Sportsmanship Initiative,” he said. “It”s a goal of the Mountain West Conference Student Advisory Committee to kind of take the sportsmanship in the Mountain West Conference to another level.”
BYU”s advisory committee is promoting this initiative by awarding athletes from the different sports for sportsmanship they show while competing for BYU, Kemp said.
He said he judges other institutions not necessarily by whether he wins or loses, but how the athletes and their fans treat him while he is competing.
Kemp said SAAC appreciates the fans and the sportsmanship the fans show at the games and the competitions.
Kemp said another major goal of the SAAC is to promote a positive image for student-athletes at BYU. One way this is done is by providing service to the community.
Earlier this year Kemp and members of the committee traveled to the University of Utah to participate in a group service project making emergency kits for battered women and the homeless.
“We usually help with all the school functions,” Kemp said. “During Blue and White Week, we helped with the canned food drive.”
Kemp said they also help with events like homecoming during the school year.
A purpose of the advisory committee is to act as a mediator between the administration and student-athletes, Kemp said.
“SAAC is the student athlete organization that basically gives student athletes voice in the formulation of university policy and in the formulation of athletic policy,” he said.
Kemp is also a member of the Mountain West Conference advisory.
“I take our student athletes” opinions to the MWC and we vote on them there,” he said.
“And also if there is a big enough issue I”ll take our issues to the Mountain West Conference level and they”ll be taken to the national level,” he said.
These issues can involve NCAA proposed legislation, Kemp said.
