Story courtesy of PNW's sports information department
HAMMOND, Ind. – INDIANAPOLIS -- Purdue University Northwest's Ismael Contreras has been elected as the new external communications coordinator for the Division II Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which announced new leadership during its virtual NCA Convention last week.
Contreras, a men's soccer player from Joliet, Illinois, has represented the voice of student-athletes by serving as the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's representative on Division II SAAC over the past year. He will continue in that role until the end of the 2023 NCAA Convention.
Contreras joins three others on the Division II SAAC Executive Subcommittee, including a chair, vice chair and internal operations coordinator. The group is tasked with designing agendas for all Division II SAAC meetings and they are the designated spokespeople for the Division II SAAC.
As external communications coordinator, Contreras will serve as chair of the community engagement subcommittee and oversee the execution of national SAAC communications within the Division II Strategic Plan.
Mackenzie O'Neill was elected as chair for a one-year term. A women's soccer player at Missouri Western, O'Neill has served as the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association's representative on Division II SAAC since 2019. In 2020, O'Neill served as vice chair and a member of the Division II Legislation Committee that, among other work, developed the division's proposal on name, image and likeness changes.
John Michael Etheridge, a baseball player at Kentucky State, was elected vice chair and Southern New Hampshire's Kate Pigsley (field hockey) was reelected as the committee's internal operations coordinator.
Additionally, Division II SAAC elected its two representatives to serve on the Division II Management Council. For the second year in a row, Madeleine McKenna, a women's volleyball player at California University of Pennsylvania, and Braydon Kubat, a men's track and field and cross country athlete at Minnesota Duluth, were chosen to serve on the council along with athletics directors, senior woman administrators, faculty athletics representatives and conference administrators.
Learn more about Division II SAAC, its members and the work they do at their page on ncaa.org.