Southbury, Connecticut, fifth-year offensive lineman to join over 200 fellow NFF Campbell Trophy® nominees at three day leadership event in Silicon Valley
Campbell Trophy Summit Website
EASTON, Mass. (July 27, 2023) – Stonehill College fifth year offensive lineman David Satkowski will be among 228 attendees at the Fifth Annual Campbell Trophy® Summit this weekend at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, the National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Hall of Fame announced.
The Summit, which starts today and runs through Saturday, is open to all former nominees for the William V. Campbell Trophy®, which has been presented since 1990, and the NFF National Scholar-Athlete Awards, which have been bestowed since 1959. The approach of inviting all the past nominees has created a unique community of recent college graduates as well as professionals in the middle of their careers and retirees who can serve as mentors.
Satkowski is among 228 attendees representing 155 colleges and universities from all divisions, whose current careers range from doctors, engineers, lawyers, physicists and business and civic leaders. This year's attendees carried an average grade point average in college of 3.65 and 59-percent have subsequently earned advanced degrees. They currently hail from 42 different states, and more than half played Division I football while another 20-percent played professionally. More than 55-percent have attended a previous Summit, and their ages run from the early 20s to 61 at an average age of 32.
A three-day event, the 2023 Summit includes leadership workshops, team building activities, and several other social networking activities designed to build relationships, including a flag football game and a trivia challenge. The panels will cover a wide range of topics designed to foster leadership, personal growth and the career development of the attendees, including a workshop with Liz Wiseman, the author of The New York Times bestseller "Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter."
Satkowski is the second Stonehill student-athlete to accept an invitation to the Campbell Trophy Summit being held at Stanford this weekend. (PHOTO BY Jan Volks/SportsPix) |
Satkowski is the second Stonehill football student-athlete to accept the invitation to attend the Campbell Trophy® Summit, joining two-time attendee Anthony Siciliano, '17. Satkowski, an All-Northeast Conference (NEC) first team selection last fall and preseason All-NEC pick for the upcoming year, was a Campbell Trophy® Semifinalist last fall to qualify for the invite to the prestigious event. He earned the NEC Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award following the Skyhawks inaugural NCAA I Football Championship Subdivision season last fall, was named to the College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District team and NEC Commissioner's Honor Roll and Academic Honor Roll for having a 3.82 cumulative grade point average as a secondary education and history dual major at the College.
Satkowski is a two-year starter on the Stonehill offensive line who has received a Presidential Merit Scholarship at the College and been named to the Dean's List seven semesters for having a grade point average of 3.50 or better. He was named to the Northeast-10 Conference Academic Honor Roll six semesters, with Academic Distinction status four semesters for having a GPA between 3.50 and 3.99 and Academic Excellence status once for having a perfect 4.0 semester GPA, prior to the College's transition to NCAA Division I. He has been named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll all eight semesters for having a GPA of 3.20 or higher.
Satkowski, who has started 19 of the 21 games he has played over his collegiate career, including all 19 games the last two seasons, is a key cog on a Stonehill offensive line that blocked for the No. 2-ranked offense in the NEC last fall behind Conference champion and FCS Playoffs participant Saint Francis (Pa.) University. The Skyhawks led the NEC in rushing offense (207.7 yds/gm) and third (43.7-percent) and fourth down conversions (64.3%) and ranked second in scoring offense (30.6 ppg), third in total offense (385.8 yds/gm) and first downs (21.2 per game) and fifth in passing offense (178.1 yds/gm). The line allowed the second-fewest sacks (18) in the NEC last fall.
Headline speakers at the this weekend's Summer, which is proudly sponsored by Intuit, the global technology platform that makes TurboTax, QuickBooks, Mint, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp, include Four-Star Admiral (Ret.) and NFF Vice Chairman William H. McRaven, Marshall University President (and former Intuit Chairman & CEO) Brad D. Smith, College Football Hall of Fame inductees Ronnie Lott (USC and NFF Board Member) and Steve Young (BYU and NFF National Scholar-Athlete), former Utah and NFL quarterback Alex Smith. Campbell Trophy® winners Sam Acho (from Texas and currently an ESPN analyst) and Chris Howard (from Air Force and currently the Executive Vice President and COO at Arizona State) will also take the stage.
Organized as a tribute to the late Bill Campbell, the award's namesake and the former CEO and Chairman of Intuit, the event serves as a vehicle for the many leaders impacted by Campbell to pass on his insights about success, leadership and personal growth. The 2023 event will again provide all past Campbell Trophy® nominees a unique chance to interact and learn from many of the nation's top entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley CEOs.
Campbell, who played and coached football at Columbia before a switch to the business world, became one of the most influential individuals in Silicon Valley as the leader of Intuit and as a board member of Apple and Google. He developed a unique reputation, earning the moniker as the "Coach of Silcom Valley" for using the lessons of the gridiron as he mentored Steve Jobs of Apple, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Sundar Pichai and Eric Schmidt of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, John Doerr of Kleiner-Perkins, Dick Costolo of Twitter, Diane Greene of VMWare, Scott Cook and Brad D. Smith of Intuit, and countless others. His contributions have been captured in a book titled "The Trillion Dollar Coach."
MWF Advisors CEO Mark Flynn, a former linebacker at Saint John's (MN) who was a volunteer coach for an eighth-grade boys-and-girls' flag-football team with Campbell, has played the lead role in organizing the event since its inception in 2017.
"Bill inspired a number of us, and all he ever asked was that we passed on, from one generation to the next, his values," said Flynn. "He had us commit to mentoring this next generation. We decided to gather really bright, talented people who have been part of this Campbell Trophy®, saying let's gather for three or four days to develop tomorrow's leaders. It was unbelievable how people would make time and change their schedule to be part of Bill's legacy… We are here to create a living legacy to Bill Campbell, and all of the scholar-athletes are in the Campbell Trophy® fraternity for life."
Stonehill will open its 2023 preseason training camp at W.B. Mason Stadium on August 6 ahead of its season opener when it hosts the University of New Hampshire, ranked No. 8 in the Athlon preseason poll and No. 14 in the HERO Sports poll, on Saturday, September 2, at 1 p.m. The Skyhawks will open their second NEC season the following Saturday, September 9, at Central Connecticut State University.
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