Checkmate Challenge Homepage

Julie Prantl, Vice-President of SAAC
November 23, 2011:

Checkmate Challenge! Ever heard of it?
This blog entry goes out to everybody who has not heard of the Checkmate Challenge yet as well as to those coaches, student-athletes and staff people who already caught on to this great opportunity of fostering school as well as team spirit (Let's go Knights!).

To explain it in one sentence, the Checkmate Challenge is SAAC's newest initiative (launched in September 2011) to get student-athletes more involved in everything going on at FDU and rewarding them for activities ranging from attending home and away games of other athletic teams, over participating in campus events and organizational meetings to doing community service. Besides the categories just mentioned, there are also points awarded for highest team GPAs as well as winning percentage and NEC awards. All athletic teams are competing against each other, trying to win the big prize awarded at the end of the year at the athletic banquet. There will be only one winning team, but this team will be lucky enough to receive a monetary prize of up to $1,000 at free disposal. Due to size, we decided to combine Men's and Women's Tennis and Golf to one team each, so now we have 10 different teams trying to gain checkmate points, while representing the colors burgundy and blue in honor and excitement.

In fact, there is a direct correlation between winning and fan support. With a home field advantage, it has been found that in a single home game the hosting team is 10-15% more likely to win than the away team. We can build on this percentage. Supporting our fellow student-athletes by attending their events might give them the extra energy needed to succeed, and it might also give you a good feeling because you know you contributed to it. We all like to compete, but we like it even better if we get recognized for our victories, and even our defeats don't seem as bad if there is people around us honoring us for the efforts we gave (Chin up, Men's Soccer!).
Not only does success feel more real when we share it with others in an athletic context, we can also enlarge this perspective to the dimension of the whole university. By attending campus events organized by various student organizations, you value their efforts and display your willingness to get more involved with them and to participate in their lives. We can all give each other more credit for the things we do daily. This is a start.
 
First Leader Board:
We posted our first leader board on November 9, 2011 in the Rothman Center with Men's Soccer leading the way. Due to newest revisions, however, and the fact that we had two fan buses going to their NEC play-off games in Fairfield, the leader board has changed already in following ways: Volleyball is claiming first place now, racking up 458 points, followed by Softball and Golf with scores in the lower 400s, while Men's Soccer and Tennis got bumped back to 4^th and 5^th place as of now. This leader board is up to some revision though since we are still missing records from quite a lot of participants. If you are wondering how to get points for your team, get in touch with your SAAC representative because they are the ones responsible for keeping track of points.