2009 AAHPERD Tampa Conference

A week ago I had the privilege to attend the national conference for the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance in Tampa Bay, Florida. It was an awesome experience. There are so many sessions and activities to do at the conference that I wish I had more time to attend them all. I learned so many new games, concepts and ideas to use when I am teaching. I have tons of notes about games and best of all, a lot of the information is posted on the AAHPERD website. I met so many people and made friends with about 20 other SUNY Cortland P.E. majors who I might have never gotten to know if I didn't go on this trip. I met leaders in the P.E. world, I met famous athletes like Carl Lewis and Garry Sheffield. Most importantly I networked with a bunch of people who can help foster my career. I attended some sessions on current issues that are going on in the P.E. and Health World. I learned about obesity issues, adaptive physical education issues, women's body image and more. I also had the opportunity to help Dr. Stephen Yang present a session on Exergames: Bridging the Gap Between Video Games, Activity, and Fun. It was a great experience for me to help teach P.E. teachers, who have more experience than me in P.E., about Exergames. I got to show them how to use some of the games and tell them about how they can be used in a P.E. setting.
I went down to Tampa with the intent of absorbing as much info as I could. I realize that I have almost two years left before I enter the job field so I wasn't in the mode of trying to land a job. However the seniors who went with us on the trip were, and it was awesome to watch and learn from them how they networked. A lot of them made connections with grad school programs and now I know what I will do in future conferences.
Lastly, I couldn't believe how popular Cortland was. I met so many alumni and everywhere we went, people saw our Cortland polos and complimented the Cortland program. A lot of people complimented how we represented ourselves and Cortland. It was an awesome feeling to hear all the positive comments about SUNY Cortland's Alliance of Physical Education Majors! I'm so happy that I went, I have memories for a life time and I can't wait to go to another conference. I strongly recommend attending the conference to everyone involved in P.E.!