Sports Day Seminar at Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» hopes to inspire female athletes beyond competition
February 9, 2026
Following on the heels of the 2026 National Girls and Women in Sports Day (NGWSD), celebrated Feb. 4, Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» (Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³») Athletics will host a gathering for anyone interested in discovering the growing number of opportunities that exist in women's and girl's athletics beyond the court, pool, field or diamond.
The Sports Day Seminar will take place Sunday, Feb. 15, at the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» gymnasium located on the Northwest Campus , 3000 NW 83rd St., in Gainesville. Admission is free and open to the general public, but registration is required. Participants may register online. Check-in begins at 1:30 p.m. in the gym lobby, where they will receive a gift packet. A panel discussion of speakers, including elite female athletes, coaches and business leaders will be followed by pizza and networking.
NGWSD was co-founded by the Women's Sports Foundation originally as a remembrance to Olympian and professional volleyball player Flo Hyman, who died in 1986. In 1987, an inaugural NGWSD event at the nation's capital brought together premier organizations of world-class women athletes to celebrate the accomplishments of female athletes, and to draw national attention to the promise of girls and women in sports.
With the enactment of Title IX that guarantees an equitable playing field for girl's and women's sports access, the financial opportunities now available through NIL (Name Image Likeness), and the growing need for support roles to manage growing female sports programs, the Sports Day Seminar seeks to inform and inspire athletes to take advantage of an emerging sector of sports-related vocations.
"What most people see in college sports (very evident in the college football playoffs) is a transactional environment where athletes and others look to make their money. For us at Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³», it all comes down to having a transformational impact on our student-athletes, our service district high school student-athletes, and the local community," said Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» Athletics Director Chanda Stebbins, creator of the event.
"We're trying to attract middle-school and high-school student-athletes as well as students from Santa Fe and UF, sharing with them the opportunities that exist in addition to coaching and playing — roles like director of operations, finance, senior women's administrator, compliance or orthopedics," she said. "There are students out there who don't know these careers exist, and they haven't figured out their calling yet, but they love the busyness, competitiveness, collaboration and engagement part of athletics. If we could give them just a little glimpse of what could be, that is our goal with this event."
Stebbins, the winningest coach in Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³» women's basketball history and a two-sport athlete (basketball and volleyball) at the University of Florida (UF), recounted how her Gator mentors — like former UF AD Jeremy Foley, Senior Women's Administrator Ann Marie Rodgers and both former UF volleyball Head Coach Mary Wise and former UF women's basketball coach Carol Ross — poured into her at a young age, blazing a path for future success as a collegiate athletics administrator.
"Even with all of that support, I never realized I would go into coaching or administration," Stebbins said. "This day is all about is showing all the wonderful ways these student-athletes can make money, not just with NIL, but after their playing days are over, capitalizing on their marketability as a professional. I feel very blessed to have an opportunity at a top-tier academic institution like Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³», that does a great job of preparing our students for whatever is next in their lives, to be a part of paying it forward."
