APPLE

Athletic Prevention Programming and Leadership Education

The goal of APPLE is to assist colleges in promoting student-athlete health and wellness.

The APPLE Model

There are seven distinct areas, “slices,” where athletics departments can address substance use related issues. The APPLE model allows our athletic department to enhance alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse prevention efforts by examining the “slices” of the APPLE and assessing our department's strengths and weaknesses in substance abuse prevention efforts.

Recent Activities

- In November of 2010 APPLE hosted an ice cream social as part of an attempt to get student athletes to come out and take surveys about skin cancer in order to gain insight into their awareness about skin cancer.

- From January 21-23, assistant athletic trainer Danielle Pelissier and head men's golf coach Craig Cowles took three APPLE members to the annual APPLE Conference in Charlottesville, Va. 

The APPLE Conference is funded by the NCAA and was held at the University of Virginia this year.  The conferences, developed by the Center for Alcohol and Substance Education at the University of Virginia, are the leading national training symposiums dedicated to substance abuse prevention and health promotion for college student athletes and athletics department administrators. The goal of the conference is to assist colleges in promoting student-athlete health and wellness by empowering teams of student-athletes and administrators to create institution-specific action plans. These action plans are selected after receiving in-depth institution specific analyses that highlight areas of strengths and weaknesses. Typically the action plans are chosen to improve areas of weakness or, if none, target areas where there is room for improvement.

"It was a great experience all around," Pelissier said. "We all had a great time and learned valuable take-home information about how to improve ourselves and our institution from the various guest lecturers, highlighted by a visit from Survivor Africa Winner Ethan Zohn."

Ethan Zohn spoke about Grassroot Soccer, a nonprofit organization he co-founded that trains professional soccer players to teach African children about HIV/AIDS prevention.

- Our spring athletics speaker was Billy McBride. He is currently the Assistant Athletic Director at Amherst College. He is a former NFL athlete and successful collegiate football and basketball athlete. Other past successes include roles as a coach, administrator, and more recently, a lecturer.

- Next APPLE Social: Tuesday, April 19 with the topic of hydration.

Meetings

The APPLE Team meets every few weeks to plan up-coming events, discuss relevant topics, and get updated on new information. Elms' APPLE team is currently working on its student athlete substance abuse policy.

2011-12 Members

Advisor: Danielle Pelissier (assistant athletic trainer)