Flight School Takes Off

With an ambitious goal to see 90 percent of its student-athletes hold post-graduate plans by the time they receive their diplomas, the Boston College Athletics Department has launched a new program to help reach that objective: "Flight School."

Flight School is another avenue BC has established to help student-athletes gain valuable insight into, and guidance for, life after graduation.

The program is aimed at providing student-athletes more opportunities to gain real-work experience before graduation, especially within constraints of year-round team obligations like practice, competitions and travel on top of their normal academic load.

Flight School connects current student-athletes with a network of Boston College alumni and their colleagues who have volunteered to serve as the student-athletes' council and resource in the professional world.

These advocates have a variety of means to engage with the program, from offering informational interviews about their vocations all the way up to offering internships or jobs to qualified student-athletes.

Several years ago, Boston College Athletics – under new Athletics Director Brad Bates – set aggressive goals for its student-athletes' post-BC professional lives.

Beginning in the 2013-14 academic year, Bates wanted 70 percent of the school's student-athletes have definitive post-graduate plans - which could include employment, graduate school, professional playing opportunities or even planned volunteer or activism projects – by the time the student-athlete received his or her diploma. The year after, the goal increased to 80 percent and topped at 90 percent in 2015-16 and beyond.

In each of the last two years, the goals were met and surpassed. It took the work of many, including Assistant Athletics Director for Student-Athlete Development Alison Quandt and her staff, to help student-athletes meet those goals. But the ambitious initiative was proving successful.

Flight School is another platform to help the Eagles' student-athletes achieve once they leave The Heights.

"Flight School represents layers of great connections and mutually beneficial relationships that ultimately serve our students, past, present and future," Bates said. "Our goal every year is to have at least 90% of our student-athletes with a job on the day they graduate and, to my knowledge, no other athletic departments have established such a lofty goal."

It's not just the BC Athletics Department that can reap the rewards of a program like Flight School.

Tony Skarupa '84, whose daughter Haley is a senior on the women's hockey team, thought alumni could benefit from the talent and intangibles student-athletes bring to the professional world.

"I approached Brad (Bates) just over a year ago because I saw some of what he saw: a talented pool of kids," Skarupa said. "I saw through my daughter and some of her relationships that student-athletes were a bit constrained, because of time commitments and capacity, to take normal routes in securing internships, mentoring situations or job opportunities."

At the same time, Quandt and her staff were in the initial stages of developing the Flight School concept.

"We started to collaborate around how to take advantage of what seems a very apparent win-win opportunity," Skarupa continued, "meaning a win for the alumni base and the companies that they work for, and a win for the student-athletes in gaining opportunities to learn more about what the next step may be in their professional lives."

Advocates now are on-board in a wide range of industries as upperclassmen begin to focus on their post-BC career paths. Skarupa has taken a leadership role in the program, and has had an easy time recruiting advocates because of the nature of the program … and the student-athletes.

"I've talked to many of my fellow alums and colleagues, and floated this as a trial balloon," Skarupa said. "I think everyone seems to get it fairly quickly. I think there's a real opportunity with these student-athletes."

Student-athletes bring a certain set of intangibles to employers.

"I've had a couple of student-athletes intern in my business and they have performed extraordinarily well," Skarupa said. "What I've found is you can put them into a situation with a base level of coaching, and, for the most part, they're going to figure out a way to get that to the next level.

"Here are kids who are naturally driven, very dedicated and have a solid work ethic, but also bring in a confidence and a level of poise and maturity that differentiates them. When you think about trying to hire talent for a business, those intangibles are what tends to set people apart," he said.

It's those qualities that have attracted advocates to the Flight School program.

"I've spoken to 10 to 15 of my peers who ask why wouldn't I be part of this," Skarupa said. "Their initial reaction is that this is a unique opportunity to connect with some special talent and they attach quickly to the opportunity to provide an internship or a mentoring opportunity, a shadowing opportunity or a job interview. I think it's a pretty apparent win-win proposition."

With the goal to see at least 90 percent of the Boston College graduating student-athletes have a set post-graduation plan by the time they receive their diploma, programs like Flight School should help achieve that goal.

"Ultimately, we've got an opportunity here to really make a difference and really drive those percentages where Brad wants them to be, and where as an institution they can and should be," Skarupa said.

Bates sees a great potential for the program, not only in the near term, but also as graduates move on and become active with future student-athletes.

"We are fortunate to have engaged alumni serving as tremendous resources – as mentors and employers – while instilling in our current and future students a sense of service to later become resources after graduation and those who follow them. This program has the potential to have a real, tangible impact on our student-athletes for years to come."

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