Karen Kassebaum

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With 10 years of experience in higher education at a Division I institution as a Director of Recruitment, and as a doctoral candidate at the University of Nebraska in Educational Administration with an emphasis in diversity and student athlete leadership, I have all too often witnessed the transitional challenges that many first generation, international, and transfer student-athletes experience.

Several coaches have commented that mentoring just happens and “our seniors will lead and take care of our young guys”. My position in a bystander role fueled me to take a closer look at the transition experiences of all incoming students-athletes and to create curriculum and assessments tools that would demonstrate whether incoming student-athletes’ transition needs we’re indeed being met.

I contacted every Division I Big Ten institution to inquire whether mentoring services and or mentor training related to transition services were offered to their student-athletes. I discovered that most Division I institutions do indeed have mentoring programs, but the majority of them only focus on specific groups of student-athletes. Two examples include only mentoring honor student athletes and racially diverse student-athletes. Most, also offer tutoring, media training, career planning & development, life skills programming, academic mentoring, strength & conditioning, athletic medicine & physical therapy, sports psychology & mental health counseling, sports nutrition, chiropractic medicine, and massage therapy.
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These responses formed the initial impetus for Athlete2Athlete, a unique, comprehensive initiative aimed specifically to address transition experiences. After securing an internship with the University of Nebraska Track & Field/Cross Country teams, Coach Matt Martin, Da’Nelle Earl, and coach Kris Grimes (at Texas A&M) gave me the opportunity to pilot my mentorship training and leadership development program, now known as Athlete2Athlete, with their Life Skills leaders.

Athlete2Athlete was then established. Importantly, the Athlete2Athlete mentorship and leadership development program provides a mentor (current student-athlete) to all incoming student athletes, which makes Athlete2Athlete one-of-a-kind.