Maine Partners With Career Athletes
Kansas City, Kan. –University of Maine Athletics recently agreed to a multi-year partnership with Career Athletes. The partnership between Career Athletes and the University of Maine athletic department provides a national representation of unique networking opportunities and career development resources for current and alumni athletes. The University of Maine Director of Student-Athlete Services/Life Skills Coordinator, Brandi Rideout, stated, “The University of Maine is thrilled to partner with Career Athletes as a way to enhance career development opportunities for both our current and former student-athletes. As a department we constantly try to find new ways to assist our student-athletes in their development on and off the playing field; this partnership will provide us with valuable resources to accomplish this goal. The ability to access such a broad professional network will certainly be a beneficial tool for all Black Bears!”
This Online Career Community Network will provide benefits such as mentoring, professional networking, virtual career coaching and 12 years of best practices from the leading and largest career services organization assisting athletes, athletic departments and campus career centers. The University of Maine “Community Network” consists of current and alumni athletes from the institution as well as local, regional and national employers all managed and monitored by Career Athletes at its home office in the Kansas City area. Individual members of Career Athletes are also able to network with over 65,000 former college athletes from across the nation while having access to over 5,000 career opportunities exclusive to www.careerathletes.com.
DJ Washington at Career Athletes explains that beyond an athletic department’s initiative assisting with career opportunities and educational resources; it also helps when there is already a -foundation on campus toward academic success. “We are pleased to assist Maine Athletics with its commitment toward career development of athletes, but it is also just as important to recognize the program’s culture of achievement in community service, academic performance and athletic success,” shared Washington, Vice President, Career Education and Training. Maine is no stranger to success as indicated by additional achievements during the 2009-2010 academic year:
* Average 3.9 conference finish for all Maine team sports.
* Fifteen America East All-American Team Selections with 16 America East individual Track and Field Champions.
* Thirty eight All-Conference honors for Black Bears student-athletes.
* An outstanding 90 Maine student-athletes graduated in 2009-2010.
* University of Maine athletics boasted 258 Conference Academic Honor Roll members and 260 University Scholar-Athletes.
Black Bear student-athletes were also involved in several community services projects the previous school year. These projects include participating in the local Boys and Girls Club as well as Habitat for Humanity. The University of Maine athletics is looking forward to continued success in the next academic and athletic year with nearly every sport returning its top players for the 2010-2011 season.
