Mike Piantedosi - APPLE Blog
Read sophomore Mike Piantedosi's blog from the APPLE Conference in Newport Beach, California.
Sophomore Mike Piantedosi, a thrower on the men's track and field team, blog throughout the weekend as he attends the APPLE Conference with fellow student Taylor Tomasetti, WSU Athletics Assistant Director For Academic Services Kelly Downs, Judicial Affairs Coordinator Josh Katz, Health & Wellness Educator Jen Quinn and Residence Director of Chandler Village Carrie Stevens.
1/24/14 - Arrival On The West Coast | 1/25/14 - Don't Drive Drunk
January 26, 2014 - A Big Surprise & An Evening In San Diego
Today was the third and final day of the APPLE Conference. After two days of eventful, highly educational sessions and speakers, we concluded the conference off with some information on how to bring what we learned and how to implement our action plans once we arrived back on campus.
The last speaker of the weekend was T.J. Sullivan who gave a speech about motivation and how to motivate all three main types of people on campus: the top third, the middle third and the bottom third. He left us with the confidence we need to effectively motivate every kind of person we encounter.
Once his insightful speech was finished, the various delegations gave reports on the APPLE Slice that they focused their action plans on. We gave the report on our slice: Education. We are going to work on a new and improved student-athlete orientation. Finally, the Team Coalition representative was ready to reveal the winners of the PSA contest. If you saw from yesterday’s YouTube entry, WSU put a lot of time and thought into our submission; and what do you know? WE WON!!! First prize was a brand new iPad Mini. We were told by one of the APPLE Conference staff members, that our “Boston Accents” gave us what was needed to put us into first place.
After the gratifying win and the closing of the conference, we
packed up our mini van, and said farewell to all our new friends
all over the United States, Newport Beach and headed out to explore
the San Diego area, since we had to wait until our red-eye flight
back to Boston.
Our first stop was at La Jolla beach to see the famous coves and sea lions. As we stood in awe of the monumental cliffs and smiled and laughed at the playful sea lions we didn’t want to leave. After a few hours and some spur of the moment travel plans, it was back in the mini van and off to the famous Gaslamp District of downtown San Diego.
We spent the late afternoon roaming the streets, shopping the local shops and enjoyed a late dinner. As we were looking for the next stop on our adventure, we decided to try to hurry off to Coronado Island to try to catch the sunset and we made it just in time. It was amazing! Then, as if that wasn’t enough, we even had enough time to wonder the streets of Little Italy and enjoyed some classic Italian desserts to close out the night before heading to the airport.
Well, now we have a long, late flight to board…
Stay Classy San Diego
Mike
Photo Above: The Group Posing For A Photo Yesterday While
Filming Their YouTube Video. Top - Josh Katz, Carrie Stevens and
Mike Piantedosi; Bottom - Jen Quinn, Kelly Downs and Taylor
Tomasetti
Photo Middle: Watching The Seals On La Jolla Beach
Photo Bottom: Sunset View On Coranado Island
Saturday, January 25, 2014 -
Don't Drive Drunk
Today, we attended the all-day portion of the APPLE Conference, which included keynote speakers, the development and submission of our action plan - which is the main reason why we are here. In addition, the Team Coalition rep held a Public Service Announcement contest that incorporated their tag line: “It’s a Slam Dunk, Don’t Drive Drunk.” Wait until you see our Public Service Announcement; it’s funny!
We spent a lot of time in our APPLE Teams looking at what we feel our student-athletes need to succeed and become a strong student advocates on and off the playing field. Specifically, we looked at how we can better our athletic orientation program and we are excited for what the upcoming August orientation has in store for all of our fellow athletes. After about three hours of discussions with Taylor and the Pro-Staff, we finally had our action plan.
One of the keynote speakers I attended was a seminar pertaining to dietary supplements and other illegal stimulants in the eyes of the NCAA. The presenters offered insight about what to look for when considering taking any of these enhancers. It was an interesting as to what is legal and illegal to take in order to recover from your workouts. The presenter provided us with websites and tips to help us on our own and this will allow us to use these tools when we return to teams.
But the funniest time of the day was when the Worcester State Team brainstormed and came up with our Public Service Announcement for the Team Coalition contest. We decided on a rap; yes, Me, Taylor and all of the staff members took turns “spittin out a rhyme” on being smart when it comes to alcohol consumption, which you can view below.
Tomorrow, is the last day, where we present our plan to the other conference attendees and say our good byes to the other student-athletes we met while we were here. I’ll submit another blog tomorrow night while sitting at the airport waiting our red-eye back to snow covered Worcester (It was 73 degrees here today).
Mike
Photo Top: Mike Piantedosi Pictured With Fellow
Student-Athlete Taylor Tomasetti
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If you cannot view the video link above please click here for the YouTube video
Friday, January 24, 2014 -
Arrival On The West Coast
My name is Mike Piantedosi, I am a sophomore Communications major who is on the Men’s Track and Field Team; in addition I am the Orientation Co-Director for the 2014 First Year Program at Worcester State. I, along with my fellow women's tennis student-athlete, Taylor Tomasetti, who is a junior Occupations Therapy major and a member of the tennis team, were chosen to represent WSU at the 2014 APPLE Conference in Newport Beach, CA. This is a national conference sponsored by the NCAA that talks about alcohol and different methods to curb alcohol use by student athletes.
Yesterday, Taylor and I, along with WSU staff members, Jen Quinn, Kelly Downs, Carrie Stevens, and Josh Katz traveled 16 hours (with layovers and drive times) and finally arrived at our hotel at around 10:30 PM California time; that’s 1:30AM in Worcester! We got our room keys and crashed.
Still on coast time, I was wide-awake at 6:00 AM. NOT GOOD! Our team met and went out to breakfast at a local place suggested by the hotel valet worker. We went to Haute Cakes; Yes, the spelling is correct. We then all piled in our mini van and headed to the beach! (Such a wonderful thing to say while it’s -10 degrees back home in Worcester). This was the first time seeing the Pacific Ocean for me, Taylor and Josh. We walked the beach for about an hour--saw dolphins swimming around the surfers and walked the pier.
After hanging out on the beach we got some good information about Main Street in Huntington Beach, so we made our way there for lunch and a walk around Balboa Penninsula.
Now it was time to go to work. Taylor and I attended the Student-Athlete Orientation. We did some ice breakers to get to know the other student-athletes there and they gave us an overview of what we could expect over the weekend.
Dinner was held right after one of the coolest speakers I’ve heard; Tiana Tozer. Tiana played college basketball in Oregon before she was hit by a drunk driver while driving in her friend’s car. Her story was amazing. She has had 34 reconstructive surgeries on her legs and it took her four years to learn to walk again. She told us how she won Silver and Bronze in the women’s basketball at the 1992 and 1996 Paraolympics in Barcelona and Atlanta. All of us would love to have Tiana come to WSU and speak to all our athletes.
Well it’s late and we need to get to bed as we are a full day tomorrow. I’ll write a little more tomorrow.
Mike
Pictured Top - The Group Poses Under The Pier At Huntington
Beach. Top - Josh Katz and Mike Piantedosi; Bottom - Taylor
Tomasetti, Kelly Downs, Jen Quinn and Carrie Stevens.
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