'Cats Wrap Up Another Successful Career Advantage Campaign

The 2024-25 academic year was a special one. Over the past six years since Career Advantage fully launched and became a focal point for Davidson Athletics, we have strived to develop impactful programming to prepare our scholar-athletes for life after sport. 

This year, we successfully completed our 5th & 6th Pro 'Cats cohorts and our 3rd Summer Business/Finance cohort, in addition to launching our inaugural Leadership Academy cohort. We conducted hundreds of advising appointments, traveled with 5 teams, and coordinated customized programming for several of our teams.

As we look ahead to 2025-26, peer mentorship and facilitation will be our next growth opportunity, especially as the Leadership Academy continues to develop with the cohort increasing from 10 participants in 2024-25 to 18 participants in 2025-26.

Thank you to all of our scholar-athletes, coaches, administrators, alums, and campus & local partners - we couldn't do this without you.

Josh King

Assistant AD/Associate Director for Engagement & Athlete Career Development

Over the course of the 2024-25 year, our scholar-athletes engaged in 619 advising appointments with 265 individual scholar-athletes participating in at least one appointment (unique appointments).

Over the course of the 2024-25 year, our scholar-athletes amassed 1,711 event attendances, with 404 individual scholar-athletes attending at least one career event (unique attendees).

The Pro 'Cats Professional Development and Leadership Bootcamp unites a selected group of up to 20 scholar-athletes to develop leadership skills while preparing for careers in all industries. The program is conducted each August and January and is open for all scholar-athletes to apply. In a conference style setting, scholar-athletes are exposed to a variety of topics, such as:

The Pro 'Cats Leadership Academy is an intensive leadership program that provides selected scholar-athletes with the opportunity to develop their leadership skills in a small cohort model and increase their potential to lead as effective team captains. The 2024-25 cohort served as the inaugural cohort with 10 participants. Throughout the year, participants completed:

Team Events & Road Trek Highlights 

In its third year, this largely self-paced, virtual program will provide scholar-athletes the opportunity to prepare for careers in business & finance, whether they have a current internship or are competing in their respective sport throughout the summer. The program combines mentorship, technical training, and professional development in preparation for future internships & full-time opportunities, all while working around your individual summer schedule.

Recent participants have landed internships and full-time roles with organizations such as: Truist, Wells Fargo, Sia Partners, Bain, and more. Additionally, several participants have gone on to attend the Tuck Business Bridge program at Dartmouth and the Vanderbilt Summer Accelerator program in pursuit of careers in finance and consulting.

A special thank you to our generous donors, participants, and each coach for seeing the value in stewarding the next generation of leaders and ensuring they have guidance, encouragement and opportunities. We're excited for a new year ahead but will look back at the 2024-2025 year with great pride. Go Wildcats!