AUS unveils new strategy to promote conference, athletes

November 6, 2012

Tighter regulations around head injuries, proper recognition for the community contributions of student-athletes and a live streaming website are all part of a new strategic plan to promote Atlantic University Sport unveiled at a press conference at Cape Breton University on Monday.

“The health and wellness of our student-athletes is important to us,” said AUS executive director Phil Currie. “Concussion is a serious issue, and one that we haven’t put in the background.

“We’ve been working on it for the past year. We’ve been working with a number of people to develop an exceptional program.”

An AUS head injury committee made up of four medical professionals with plenty of experience in sport-related concussions, three AUS athletic directors and the conference executive director was put together last year.

Because of the findings of the committee over that time, all instances of hits to the head resulting in injury will now be reviewed by the executive director.

Also unveiled was the BecAUSe We Care campaign, a conference-wide initiative to recognize the community involvement and volunteer efforts of AUS student-athletes.

“We will be rolling the information for the program on the AUS website,” said Currie. “Last year, (AUS) studentathletes contributed $86,000 to various causes, a combined 15,800 hours of community service and supported 112 causes.”

The fans are included in the equation with a new, live streaming website, AUStv.ca, which will host broadcasts of every conference championship.

“We’re very excited about the new website,” said Currie. “It has lots of new features, including a fan zone and a social media directory that links fans and users of the site to the social media that fans are using.

“The site is up and running, it’s functional and we’ll be updating it in the future. We’re pretty excited about the potential of new components of the website.”