CCIW Student-Athlete Spotlight (January 2021)
Each month, the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) will highlight the accomplishments of a conference student-athlete. This month, we look into the career of North Central tennis student-athlete Sydney Sawyer.

Story by Mike Krizman, CCIW Assistant Executive Director

NAPERVILLE, Ill. – North Central junior Sydney Sawyer was looking for new opportunities in her collegiate tennis career.
 
After spending her first two seasons at Christopher Newport in Newport News, Virginia, Sawyer decided that a change of environment was in order. North Central tennis coach Ryan Jump reached out to the Leesburg, Virginia native and from there, Sawyer started fresh in an up-and-coming program.
 
“I left my team and school, took a gap semester and was contacted by Ryan,” Sawyer said. “I saw that North Central was in the Midwest, in Naperville and just outside Chicago, so this was going to be different then my life on the East Coast.”
 
What she saw was a Cardinal program that was on the rise as Jump was already the Cardinals’ winningest coach in just three years on the job. Jump had also taken the program from eighth place in the CCIW in 2017 to a pair of fourth place finishes in 2018 and 2019.
 
“Christopher Newport was an established team,” Sawyer said. “To come to North Central, a growing program, I thought that would be a great experience to be part of something like that.”
 
Jump was an All-CCIW performer and two-time CCIW team champion at Carthage during his own collegiate career. He graduated in 2016 as the program’s all-time leader in wins. Sawyer only played for one week before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the season down, but she noticed the difference her coach made even in that short period of time.
 
“(Ryan) can relate to us because he’s been there,” she said. “I only got to play one full week, but in that time, I noticed his intensity right away. He holds both the men’s and women’s teams to very high standards.”
 
Making a Difference off the Court
 
Sawyer is making the most of her time at her new campus both on and off the tennis court.
 
During the summer of 2020, North Central created the Athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council, which includes students, coaches, staff, alumni and faculty. The duties of the Council are to “help provide guidance and perspective along with establishing goals and benchmarks to mark collective progress.”
 
Sawyer joined the Council last summer as a student-athlete representative and immediately went to work on fulfilling their mission.
 
“I was assigned to the women’s sports division,” she said. “With that, we’ve been focusing on making North Central more attractive to women, particularly women of color. We’re looking at ways to better showcase the accomplishments of women in sports. We also provide opportunities for women to join virtual discussion groups as a safe space to talk about the issues they’re facing.”
 
In the short time he’s been her coach, Jump has seen that same level of compassion from Sawyer towards her teammates, which has had a positive effect on the program as a whole.
 
“Sydney’s energy, drive, and passion for everything she does is contagious,” Jump said. “From her very first practice last year, it was evident the kind of role and impact she’d make for our program. Her drive makes everyone around her better and makes every aspect of our team competitive, yet her loyalty and compassion to her teammates make her a fantastic asset to our program.”
 
Sawyer understands that change comes slowly, but she’s quick to point out the important work of the council and the campus leaders in helping to bring about this change.
 
“I’m seeing the leaders on our campus push to have a diversity council, and I see them push to having these tough conversations,” she said. “We’ve talked in the council about hiring more people in leadership roles who have different backgrounds. That definitely helps for people like me to say to myself ‘if they can do it, I can too.’
 
“The Council has opened up communication and allowed us to have tough conversations,” she continued. “It gives us a place to discuss it, so we don’t end up dancing around the topic and we can tackle issues as they arise.”
 
An Eye to the Future
 
Sawyer is set to graduate with a degree in marketing in the spring of 2022. She’s keeping her options open, but her goals remain high including an MBA from Georgetown University, followed by a career as a sports agent.
 
“I want to eventually become a sports agent, particularly for tennis,” she said. “I’m very much into the marketing aspects of sports and I’m interested in helping build an athlete’s brand image. It’s a big jump for players to go from juniors to the pros and it would be nice to help them make that transition be as smooth as possible.”
 
It’s that same drive for success that makes Jump happy to have Sawyer be part of his growing program.
 
“Her competitiveness and drive, as well as her goals and mission being the same as our team’s, made it a natural fit for both sides,” Jump said. “We couldn’t be happier to have her as part of our family.”
 
Visit this link for more information on North Central's Athletics Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. 

CCIW Student-Athlete Spotlight
Sydney Sawyer - North Central (January 2021)
Jackson Allen - Millikin (December 2020)
Colleen Palczynski - Illinois Wesleyan (November 2020)
Matt Szuba - North Park (October 2020)
Sam Reichert - Wheaton (September 2020)
Favor Ezewuzie - Wheaton (August 2020)
Ellie Manderfeld - North Park (July 2020)
Izaiah Webb - North Central (June 2020)
Tori Stuart - Millikin (May 2020)
Skylar LeVine - Illinois Wesleyan (April 2020)
Emily Clausen - Elmhurst (March 2020)
Colton Klein - Carthage (February 2020)
Michaela Johnson - Carroll (January 2020)
Luke Sawicki - Augustana (December 2019)
The College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) was founded in 1946 and currently services nine member institutions including Augustana College (Rock Island, IL), Carroll University (Waukesha, WI), Carthage College (Kenosha, WI), Elmhurst University (Elmhurst, IL), Illinois Wesleyan University (Bloomington, IL), Millikin University (Decatur, IL), North Central College (Naperville, IL), North Park University (Chicago, IL) and Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL).