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Bola Bamiduro is a Barnard student-athlete with a job. Not a work-study job in a campus office, mind you. She works . . . well, just about anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
As the current vice-chair and chair apparent of the Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Bamiduro, BC'01, has logged a lot of frequent-flyer miles. "You get pretty used to airports and hotels," Bamiduro said, "because meetings are held all over the country and sometimes outside it."
Since named Ivy Group representative to the Committee last July, Bamiduro-a rising senior, a political science major and a captain of the lacrosse team-has traveled north to Boston; south to Hilton Head, S.C.; west to San Diego, and abroad to Mexico to attend meetings.
At these gatherings Bamiduro is joined by a representative from each of the 30 NCAA Division I conferences. The representatives, who serve for two years, shape policy which is presented to the NCAA's Division I Management Council. The Council then hammers the policy into legislation that it in turn puts before the Board of Directors. Depending on the Board's vote, the legislation either does or doesn't become NCAA law.
As the Ivy Group representative, Bamiduro is responsible for defending the interests of the Ancient Eight at the Committee's three yearly meetings. To do this she stays in frequent contact with the Ivy schools by visiting their campuses and by conference call.
The Committee is presently at work on the deregulation of amateurism and the low graduation rate of basketball players.
"I make sure that the changes being proposed for these issues don't hurt us," Bamiduro said, "so that increased scholarship aid to athletes at the big-time sports schools, for instance, don't make it impossible for the Ivies to attract athletes at all."
After her election to the vice chair of the Committee-the first Ivy Group representative to hold the position-at the January meeting in San Diego, Bamiduro's duties multiplied. Not only was she the Ivy Group's liaison to the Committee, but she became the Committee's liaison to the Management Council also, and that meant even more travel.
Bamiduro is sanguine, however. She will at least be accustomed to the pace, she explained, when she becomes the Committee chair in January. "Besides, I focus the best when I'm busy."
There are surely few people who wouldn't choose such a job over, say, filing documents, answering phones and running errands, the kind of clerical tasks that are the staple of campus work-study positions. Yet to do what Bamiduro does takes an uncommon amount of dedication.
For each day that she conducts NCAA business, Bamiduro receives just $75. She is of course reimbursed for her travel and hotel expenses, but not for all her meals. So Bamiduro stays solvent by working as a hostess in an Upper West Side restaurant, a job that also provides her the flexibility to leave for several days at a stretch when there's NCAA work to do.
But it is the experience (if not the money) of working in sports that she has profited from the most. Bamiduro has decided that she wants to make her career in the field, and has set her sights on doing public relations for a sports management firm after graduation this May.
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