Lessons Learned Keep Paying Off
February 8, 2013
By Terri Finch Hamilton
Reprinted with permission of CMUChippewas.com
Gina Mazzolini's parents taught her to be a good person first, a good student second, and a good athlete after that. But Mazzolini says her involvement in sports at CMU taught her things that went way beyond the classroom.
"At Central, I learned women are just as good as men -- or better," says Mazzolini, assistant director at the Michigan High School Athletic Association. "I learned that if we put our minds to it, we can do anything."
A star athlete in volleyball and basketball at CMU from 1974 to 1978, Mazzolini says college sports helped her soar after the limitations for girls in high school sports in the early 1970s.
"In high school, women were always taking the back seat to men," says Mazzolini, 57. "I didn't see women in leadership positions in high school. Girls couldn't use the weight room -- we had to sneak in, then we'd get kicked out. They'd look at me and say, 'Why would you want to lift weights?'
"When the guys were done with the gym, then we could use it."
As an athlete at St. Johns High School, Mazzolini was just starting to compete competitively, she says. She won the school's first ever female athlete of the year award.
"Then I went to Central Michigan, and my teammates were all the best kids from their high school teams. Suddenly, everybody was good. And everybody we played against was good."
It was eye opening, she says.
"You learn a lot about yourself," she says. "If you can survive a practice, if you can survive playing Michigan State, you get confidence. I realized I was good. I learned how to be competitive, in a good way."
In basketball, she led the Chippewas in scoring and rebounding three straight seasons - averaging in double figures in both categories. After graduating from CMU, Mazzolini went on to teach and coach at the high school and college levels. She was inducted into the CMU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1992.
A few years later, Mazzolini received the 2009-10 Women In Sports Leadership Award by the Representative Council of the MHSAA.
So much of what she learned on the college volleyball and basketball courts prepared her for later success, Mazzolini says.
"In athletics, you can't worry about what just happened," she says. "You control your emotions, you take a deep breath, you move forward."
Good advice on any day, she says.
"You learn that you don't always win, and you learn to take defeat gracefully," she says. "Later, in your business life, you're not going to win everything, either. Sports teaches you how to deal with setbacks, how to work hard and rearrange your goals so that you do better next time.
"You learn if you work together, you can achieve amazing things."
CMUChippewas.com is running a series of stories to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX legislation. Click to see more of the series.
Stoney Creek Leaders Speak Up to Save Lives
May 26, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
The crowd for Rochester Hills Stoney Creek’s boys basketball game against rival Rochester was as rowdy as could be hoped for most of the evening Feb. 28.
But it fell silent during halftime as Stoney Creek juniors Nate Davis, Kevin Price and Isabella Ubaydi spoke of how suicide had affected them and their community.
A student had committed suicide every year during their high school careers – including Price’s brother just six months before.
All three are members of the school’s Cougar Athletic Leadership Council, which put on the Suicide Prevention Awareness basketball game not only to raise money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, but also to start the conversation on a sensitive topic that has hit home.
“We wanted to get the word out that it’s OK to talk about these issues – help the topic get out of the dark,” Ubaydi said.
“It was insane. It was awesome. There were so many people. Our student section area where we all sit was filled up to the top row. There were a lot of people from the community who didn’t go to Stoney Creek, or have alumni (associated with the school) or anything like that. But they were at Stoney Creek, and it was great to show people actually care in our community.”
The leadership council is a club made up of Stoney Creek athletes who coordinate special events, including for athletics, with an eye especially on helping the community’s youth, elderly and those with disabilities. Ubaydi, Price and Davis are co-chairs of the CALC’s special events committee.
The tragic circumstances of the last three years led the group to bring suicide prevention to the forefront. While Ubaydi spoke mostly about why the event was held and how donations would be spent, Price and Davis (Price’s best friend) talked about how suicide had affected them personally. “You could hear a pin drop,” Ubaydi said. “After we were done, (the crowd) gave a standing ovation.”
CALC raised nearly $3,500 selling T-shirts that also included free student admission to the game. After Ubaydi, Price and Davis spoke, buckets were passed through the crowd during a “miracle minute” and filled with another $1,200.
All profits from the night, including $500 from concessions, were donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and Ubaydi said the $1,000 from the Community Service Award also will be sent to AFSP.
She’s since heard stories from teachers of classmates coming forward to express worries about people in their lives, a sign awareness is paying off. At the same time, Ubaydi and her co-chairs are just as concerned about people who didn’t attend the Suicide Prevention Awareness game and might be experiencing troubles in their lives – but the hope is the event spoke loudly enough to be heard by anyone who needs help.
All three leaders are juniors beginning to contemplate their futures after high school; Ubaydi is leaning toward Roanoke College in Virginia to study political science and minor in theology, while Price is considering Michigan State to study environmental science and Davis is looking at options for pre-law or political science. They hope to host the suicide prevention event again as seniors before they graduate, with future CALC students then carrying on the mission.
“Suicide is an uncomfortable topic to talk about. Since people saw us relating to how it has affected us personally, the community will become comfortable discussing mental illnesses together,” Ubaydi wrote in CALC’s award application.
“I wanted to have this event so people understand that the influence that one person can make may be life-changing. This then causes them to be there for others, see the signs quicker, and save more lives.”
PHOTO: (Top) Cougar Athletic Leadership Council leaders Kevin Price, Isabella Ubaydi and Nate Davis show their shirts from the school’s Suicide Prevention Awareness night. VIDEOS: (Top) State Champs! Network covered the event and interviewed its organizers. (Below) Davis, Ubaydi and Price speak during halftime, also filmed by State Champs! Network.
2017 Community Service Awards
Sunday: Colon "Yard Squad" - Read
Monday: Bailey Brown, Brighton - Read
Tuesday: Justice Ottinger, Newaygo - Read
Thursday: Katie Sesi, Ann Arbor Huron - Read
Friday: Nikki Sorgi, Utica Ford - Read
Friday: Cougar Athletic Leadership Council, Rochester Hills Stoney Creek - Read