University of Oregon
USC
Ducks Beyond Athletics: On Or Off The Court, Scott Works To Empower Women
11/21/17 | Women's Volleyball
Senior Maggie Scott facilitates her Oregon volleyball teammates on the court, and also works to empower fellow student-athletes through Oregon SAAC.
The Oregon volleyball team has one more week left in its regular season, and then an NCAA Tournament berth to anticipate.
That has senior setter Maggie Scott's focus, as does the final weeks of fall quarter at the university. But for as focused as she is on both academics and athletics, Scott knows her future beyond the University of Oregon is looming as well.
"I'm realizing this more now, but it's so hard when you've linked your identity to your sport and what you do, and now I'm graduating," said Scott, who will go through senior day ceremonies with the rest of her class prior to the Ducks' match Wednesday against USC (2 p.m., Pac-12 Network). "This is the only disadvantage to playing sports in college. I'm lucky I'm a fall sport, because I have time to figure out my life and identity outside of athletics."
It was during her junior season, a year ago, that Scott began to deeply consider outlets other than volleyball. Oregon's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee quickly garnered her attention.
Within SAAC, there are four subgroups all aimed at enhancing student-athletes' experience while at Oregon: O-Heroes, athlete unification, BeOregon, and Women of Oregon. At the beginning of this academic year, the co-director position for Women of Oregon opened up and Scott decided it was an opportunity she could not pass up. Scott oversees the role along with fellow co-director Shweta Sangwan from the tennis team.
As co-director, Scott is in charge of several responsibilities, including networking, budgeting, event planning and coordinating multiple sports' schedules. Women of Oregon events include health series and de-stress events like smoothie bowl competitions, yoga, therapy dogs, and the women's symposium.
The women's symposium is an annual event that gathers female student-athletes and teaches them how to apply their experiences in their sport at Oregon into the workplace. There, athletes get professional headshots and learn how to network while attending different breakout sessions.
Currently, Scott is working on an event called "Talk the Transition," which is catered to helping freshmen during their transition into college by pairing them with upperclassmen from all sports to provide advice. Scott hopes the event will offer a "big sis/little sis" kind of relationship.
"Shweta and I had a vision of empowering female student-athletes and loved the idea of this 'girl power' movement," Scott said.
In the future, Scott hopes to continue empowering those around her with her human physiology degree, whether she chooses to go the medicinal route as a nurse practitioner or physical therapist, or as a sport product designer.
