Female Athletic Directors and Assistant Athletic Directors in the Central Suburban League (CSL) aimed to bring female student-athletes together to learn about leadership, adversity, challenge, and growth, Courtney Middleton,
Associate Athletic Director, said. To achieve this, they created the EmpowerHER conference, Middleton said.

The EmpowerHER conference was held at North on Feb. 16 and welcomed keynote speaker Dr. Wendy Ellis Jones, a nine-time All-American track star whose collegiate records remain unbroken, Middleton said. The conference also included multiple workshops focused on sports psychology, leadership, mental health, how to build your brand on social media, and female-specific injury prevention, Middleton said. As interest grew, more schools recognized it as an opportunity to connect and develop, leading to invitations beyond CSL schools, with almost 30 schools in attendance, including Stevenson, Fremd, and Libertyville High Schools, Middleton said.

“The conference is about empowering females to believe in themselves, develop stronger confidence, and recognize how athletics plays a role in building that confidence—and how we can use that to take a step forward and have an impact in the world around us,” Middleton said.

The EmpowerHER conference also highlighted how young female athletes can apply lessons learned at the conference to their daily lives, Tom Mietus, Assistant Principal of Athletics, said. Even for athletes who do not plan to pursue their sport professionally, the conference can still provide them with opportunities to build life skills that they can carry with them, Mietus added. These skills may come through examples from presenters or through activities at the conference, Mietus said.

“I hope these athletes would be able to look and see what other females have done and how they’ve applied their experience as a high school athlete to whatever career they are in,” Mietus said.

The EmpowerHER conference further resonated with student-athletes by offering insights into the lives of other successful athletes, and encouraged attendees to see what they could achieve in their own athletic careers, senior Lexi Clark, Varsity Field Hockey Captain, said.

“It gave a new perspective on sports and how you see other athletes,” Clark said. “The presenters came from the same spot most of us are coming from, and they were able to accomplish so much through their dedication and hard work.”