ALAMOSA, Colo. - Adams State Men's Basketball Coach, Russ Caton, recently participated in an NCAA Division Leadership Conference in Indianapolis, IN. The conference consisted of randomly selected coaches across multiple sports in DII. Caton was encouraged with all of the new information he learned that can be used to help guide his basketball program.

The conference covered a variety of different topics and issues. "It was a weekend of improving," Caton said. "They went over leadership, fundraising...Mental illness is a big topic now so they had different speakers talk to us about those sorts of things."

Caton felt there were several strategies from this conference that he could implement moving forward that would help the Grizzlies, especially off the court. He sees a real opportunity to connect with the Alamosa community.

"I was really glad to get some thoughts and new ideas on [fundraising] from some people who are really good at it. I think we do a good job of community involvement but there is definitely more that we can do. We do a lot of community service, but I think the engagement we can do a lot more of."

Caton also benefited from talking to coaches from different sports. He was comforted to find that many of them dealt with the same challenges he faced with his program. "It was kind of nice seeing that even though you're different sports, you're really dealing with the same type of issues. Everyone is dealing with the same sort of thing... transfers, retention… but it's happening everywhere. So there was some good stuff there that was reassuring."

The Adams State Men's Basketball team is coming off of an 11-17 season in 2018-2019 and an 11-11 conference record that put them into the RMAC postseason as the eight-seed. With several changes to this season's roster, it will be exciting to see the Grizzlies in action once their season begins in early November.