Coaches stress sport-specific fundamentals to their teams. Student-athletes at Grambling and Louisiana Tech recently got expert coaching about fundamentals in daily life.
On Tuesday, Feb. 9, Bulldogs, Techsters and Tigers from a variety of sports participated in life skills instruction provided by their respective institutions. The timing was coincidental, but appropriate for the two athletic programs located in closer proximity to each other than any others in Division I.
Louisiana Tech Athletics partnered with Origin Bank for its annual financial literacy training for student-athletes in the Thomas Assembly Center.
Grambling’s career-based event, the “Cricket Celebration Bowl Virtual Development Seminar” presented by Allstate Insurance, was conducted via Zoom for student-athletes and coaches.
It covered building brand awareness, financial literacy (money management) and career development/networking opportunities. The campus organizer was GSU Athletics’ academic coordinator Nathan Ismael.
Tech’s financial literacy training seminar has been presented for eight years. It was organized by the Louisiana Tech Academic Resource Center who joined forces with Origin Bank each of the past three years.
“A big part of our mission is to better prepare our student-athletes to be well equipped to compete in life once they are done with their college education,” said LA Tech VP and Director of Athletics Eric Wood. “I appreciate our academic resource staff and our friends at Origin Bank working hard to make this an educational opportunity for those who wanted to take advantage of it.”
In addition to Tuesday night’s seminar, Louisiana Tech student-athletes also have access to online financial literacy trainings throughout the year as part of this life skills opportunity.
“It covered the importance of building credit and budgeting and these types of things that most students don’t think about early in their college careers. Then it just hits you,” said LA Tech Athletic Academic Advisor Ryan Amodei.
Origin Bank representatives Bruce Rushing and Matt Barker spoke about various financial topics, including credit reports, credit cards, bank accounts, budgeting, and more. They also answered student-athletes’ questions throughout the event.
“Tonight was a really good example of two experts in the financial industry explaining the importance of these areas while answering some questions,” Amodei said. “They are both Tech graduates. They have a couple of years of banking under their belt. They understand what it’s like to be a college student and the struggles that happen financially and how to best approach it.”
The financial literacy training is designed to help student-athletes prepare for the transition out of college.
“No one wants to live paycheck to paycheck,” Rushing said. “Financial pressure puts stress on you. If you have stress on you, that is going to affect your attitude throughout a day-to-day basis. It is going to affect how you treat other people and how other people may treat you. I would just say to live within your means, have a budget and stick to it. Be disciplined with your finances.”