Students Attend Sportsmanship Summit

A select group of Alma-Pepin students were sent to a sportsmanship summit at Eleva-Strum High School that included members from the Dairyland conference as well. Craig Hillier was the keynote speaker for this all day event. Hillier has been a sports fanatic his whole life and understands the importance of leadership. Craig uses his enthusiastic lifestyle to inspire many kids all over the nation.
Craig’s main goal is to promote leadership skills in young adults. He does this by traveling across the country and meeting with young athletes from all walks of life. He chooses these students knowing they will have a big impact on those around them. During this full day event, students participated in many different activities that required them to interact with students from other school districts. He also used his time, by telling anecdotes or short stories to help teach important lessons about leadership and positivity. Craig used many quotes, for example, “Mistakes are great moments”. He taught the students to embrace their mistakes and learn from them rather than dwelling on the negative.
To engage all of the students, Craig would pair students from different school districts and require them to overcome challenges. One of the many activities he did was straight leg tag. A student would find a partner out of the many people in the auditorium, and would play tag in a tiny, crowded area. To add more of a challenge, the students were not allowed to bend their knees. This taught students that it is possible to overcome challenges that they aren’t used to dealing with. He said an example of this was a coach moving a player to a different position in their sport.
The Sportsmanship Summit proved to be impactful to all students who attended. Craig left the students with one final quote, “Why would you want to wear a jersey with someone else's name on it, when you should want to make a name for yourself.”