The Syracuse Sports Corporation, along with the graduate students in the Sport Venue & Event Management Program at Syracuse University’s Falk College, will host the 2015 Syracuse Sport Summit on Thursday, April 30 beginning at 9 a.m. (check-in at 8 a.m.) at Drumlins Country Club, 800 Nottingham Road. The event aims to spark discussion about the integration of disabled citizens, particularly wounded military veterans, into the community through the use of adaptive sports.
The Summit will utilize three breakout sessions in order to facilitate discussion amongst an anticipated 200 attendees that will include experts and professionals from the adaptive sports community, military veteran community, sports and event management industries, and local political scene. These three sessions are as follows: adaptive sport (civilian and wounded veterans), event management, and facility operations. The breakout sessions will feature speakers who specialize in each topic and will run simultaneously for 30 minutes, repeating three times so that attendees will have the ability to attend all of them.
Headlining the event will be Julie O’Neill (Team Leader of Sport Performance, United States Olympic Committee) who will make her keynote address during the event’s lunch hour. In her role with the USOC, she oversees the high-performance planning process and sport development projects for five internally managed Paralympic sports, including track and field, cycling, swimming, and alpine and Nordic skiing. Additionally, featured breakout session speakers include: Michele Evanson, (President, Syracuse Sports Corporation), Rebecca Hann (Associate VP of Operations, Onondaga Community College), John Register (Associate Director, United States Olympic Committee), and Brian McLane (Board of Advisors, Burton Blatt Institute).
The day will kick-off with a presentation from the graduate students in the Sport Venue & Event Management program. The presentation will reveal logistical findings and suggestions for the possibility of the Syracuse area hosting a statewide athletic competition for physically disabled athletes, including wounded military veterans. Attendees will then expand on these findings with suggestions of their own in order to shape a proposal for the competition.
Registration for the 2015 Syracuse Sport Summit is set at $35.00 and can be completed at syracusesportsummit.wordpress.com. To inquire about the event further, please contact Gina Pauline at (315) 443-9881 or send an email to syracusesportsummit@gmail.com.