The Delta Upsilon fraternity held its third annual speaker series on Thursday, centered on building leadership skills in nonprofit organizations. The event, which focused on sports, featured a three-person panel: Jay Calnan, a Tufts alumnus and co-founder of Team IMPACT, which matches disabled children with college sports teams; Lily Siddall, the head coach of Tufts women’s rowing; and Chris Nowinski, the co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, which fights neurological diseases common in combat sports.
The panel was moderated by David Radlo (A’86), host of the ForbesBooks podcast “Sustainable Leadership and Disruptive Growth,” and Jack Derby, founder of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center at Tufts.
Putting together the event was a team effort by Delta Upsilon members. Trevor Hillier, the fraternity’s vice president for membership education, spoke to the Daily before the event about the impact of the panelists.
“I think everyone in the audience, whatever they’re hoping to get out of attending the event … will get whatever they intend to and a whole lot more,” he said.
Nick Goldberg, a new sophomore member of Delta Upsilon who worked on outreach for the event, says fraternities should be as involved in the community as possible. He sees the speaker series as a valuable intersection between professional development skills and addressing societal issues.
Panelists began the conversation by discussing their backgrounds. Questions from the audience — composed mostly of Delta Upsilon members and Tufts athletes — were interspersed throughout the discussion.
Nowinski’s history of fighting diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy is deeply personal. He played football at Harvard University and became a WWE wrestler. He mentioned the death of a friend as a result of CTE-related mental illness and described his own history of concussions.
“I got into this because I got kicked in the head too much … until I basically broke my brain,” Nowinski said.
Although he calls it the “most solvable problem in the world,” he recognizes the magnitude of his organization’s fight against CTE, which, through their campaign Stop Hitting Kids in the Head, works in part to prevent repetitive head impacts on children playing contact sports.
“It’s a mountain that we’re continuing to climb, and we’re fighting every day … In youth football this year, there will be a billion head impacts, and we’re saying, ‘Why don't we just make it 300 million?’” Nowinski said.
The event emphasized prioritizing ways to help the larger community in addition to finding personal success. In his opening remarks, Derby said that the goal of the event was to give attendees insight into how they can make a difference.
“There [is] corporate leadership … but what if there was an opportunity to additionally participate in giving back?” Derby said.
In that respect, Nowinski highlighted the CLF’s role in the community.
“Our nonprofit is trying to solve a problem that the markets cannot solve themselves,” he said. “There’s a lot of reasons to create for-profit companies that try to achieve things. [In] this one, nobody makes money with our success. In fact, a lot of people lose money with our success.”
In hopes of inspiring the student-athletes in attendance, Calnan connected playing youth sports with gaining valuable insight.
“I learned these amazing life lessons. I learned work ethic, I learned discipline, teamwork, I learned leadership skills. I learned followship skills,” he said.
Calnan detailed the influence of his hometown of Bristol, Conn. on his early life. Later, his ability to play football at Tufts and the connections he made with his teammates jump-started his career.
“I felt indebted. It’s not like I wanted to give back because it’s the right thing to do. I wanted to give back because I needed to give back to the people who committed their time, their money and their resources to offer me the opportunity to learn great life lessons through sports when I was a kid,” he said.
When she was first starting out in the world of coaching, Siddall — who led Tufts women’s rowing to its first Division III national championship last year — leaned on her willingness to learn.
“I’d listen to stories of different strength coaches who’d slept in their cars, or basketball coaches who would do anything to get that next job … when I would volunteer, I knew nothing about coaching. I just knew I wanted to get into it,” she said.
Siddall described how skills learned on a team can transcend sports.
“A business, to me, is just another type of team,” she said. For her, it is important to have a vision before taking action — as she puts it, “having a belief in something before the evidence.”
Derby attempted to translate many of the panelists’ conceptual ideas into tangible advice for attendees. He often asked what attributes and skills the panelists look for in their team members, whether they be volunteers or athletes.
Calnan underscored initiative and desire for growth. “What you’re looking for is that person who goes and does it and comes back to you and says ‘I could potentially do it better. I could do more. I could do another role,’” he said.
The event culminated with a presentation of awards to the speakers and an opportunity for attendees to network with panelists and peers.
