April 18 - Cassie Smith (she comes from a large, ethnically-diverse family)
April 21 - Makenna Sullivan (she is a Leap-Year Baby)
April 28 - Kacy Eckley (she used to be one of the top youth golfers in the country)
May 5 - Annika Pater (she was a basketball star in high school)
June 8 - Monica Rios (she was born in Puerto Rico)
June 17 - Haley Kemper (she is into four different types of boardsports)
June 23 - Emmi Carroll (she has broken 12 bones in her lifetime)
July 11 - Allison Werner (she attended private Catholic school for grades K-12)

RICHMOND, Ky. – Over the spring and summer, we will be profiling members of the Eastern Kentucky soccer team. Next up: rising senior Mikayla Brillon
 
Mikayla, a sports management major from Temecula, California, received a one-of-a-kind experience this summer thanks to the NCAA.

EKUSports: You recently attended the NCAA Career in Sports Forum in Indianapolis. Tell us a little bit about that.
 
Mikayla Brillon: I applied to attend the forum on the advice of Josh Shipp and the Bratzke Center staff, and I got in! I was one of only 200 student-athletes from across the country accepted. The forum focuses on finding careers in sports; not just careers in the NCAA or careers in college athletics, but sports in general. It was a four-day forum and we were going from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day, doing different seminars and breakout sessions. It was very professional, and we were told to dress in business attire.
 
ES: Were you able to make contacts for future jobs in the sports world?
 
MB: Yes. Each day, there was a different keynote speaker that would focus on that day's topic. One day, the topic was networking. Another day, the topic was building your own brand. I was able to meet LaChina Robinson, who is a WNBA analyst and a former basketball player at Wake Forest. I also met people who work at different colleges across the country, including coaches, events and facilities managers, marketing directors and sports information directors.
 
ES: That's awesome. What do you want to do with your degree when you graduate?
 
MB: I really badly want to work in baseball. I grew up watching baseball. My dad is a diehard Boston Redsox fan, so I was born and raised on sitting and watching baseball games. I'm going to be working with the EKU baseball team this spring, learning from Coach Thompson. I ultimately want to work in the marketing department for a professional or college baseball team. I don't want to be sitting down a lot. I want to be creating things and coming up with creative ideas.
 
ES: What else did you learn at the forum?
 
MB: I feel like I got a behind-the-scenes look at the NCAA and college sports in general. It changed my view on how much actually goes into college athletics; how much time and effort, how many different cogs and wheels make just one athletics department work. It was really fascinating to see that.
 
ES: Would you recommend this forum to other EKU student-athletes?
 
MB: I definitely would. I think that this something a lot of people should try to attend. It was a very nerve-wracking experience in that you have to wear business attire the whole week, etc. But it's something that changed my whole perspective on how I look at sports and it made me want to learn more about different fields in sports. I was also able to meet student-athletes from all over the country and make a lot of good connections. It was an amazing experience, and I would recommend it to all EKU student-athletes.