CORVALLIS, Ore. – Heading into the 2020-21 year, 24 student-athletes were named to the Cascade Collegiate Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), representing their schools.
Corban Phillips is one of the two SAAC reps at Northwest University. The senior digital marketing major runs cross country and track for the Eagles and chose NU because of the location, running program, values and the coaches.
Phillips believes as a student-athlete he has to find the “balance between working your hardest but not injuring yourself,” and his hard work has paid off. Last year, Phillips helped the Eagles qualify for the NAIA National Cross Country Championship Meet.
“Easily one of my favorite memories was making it to Nationals as a team in the fall of 2019,” said Phillips. “We already had a light team, but we were also dealing with quite a few injuries. We were able to pull it all together just in time to run well at the conference championship to qualify.”
This year, Phillips will have to wait until the spring to compete due to the coronavirus, but the biggest impact the virus has had on Phillips is that “it has changed what it looks like to be connected with the people [he] cares about.”
The Olympia, Wash., native says some of the most influential people in his life are his coach Mark Mandi, his roommate Dawson Andrews, and his campus pastor Christian Dawson.
When Phillips isn’t out running or studying, he enjoys photography, videography, and playing musical instruments. In fact, after graduation, Phillips hopes to do photography or videography or coaching as a profession.
As a SAAC rep, Phillips hopes to “bring a better awareness of athletics on campus and cultivate a more unified overall athletics program.”