Athletes Become All-Around Leaders at Chapman Panthers discover that leadership has many forms, and the lessons last long after the final whistle.

On a spring afternoon, Rose Malen ’26 steps into the pitcher’s circle. Her parents are in the stands. Her teammates are behind her. The crowd is close enough to hear every call. Every strikeout—and every mistake—belongs to everyone watching.

Malen calls herself “vocal but not loud.” It’s a fitting understatement. She’s the SCIAC Pitcher of the Year and an NFCA All-American who helped lead her team to the SCIAC championship last year. She balances a 3.98 GPA with Greek life and an internship at Lennar Corporation, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders.

The mix is demanding, but Malen says that’s why she chose Chapman.

It’s also why recruiters pay attention. Companies from DirecTV to PNC Bank contact Chapman directly, looking for student-athletes like Malen. They know Panthers arrive career-ready, tested in ways most young professionals won’t experience until much later.

The Sweet Spot Of D3

Division III athletics isn’t a compromise—it’s a choice. Chapman athletes compete at a high level, but they also have the freedom to be more than their sport. They study abroad, take internships, join clubs and lead in ways that athletes at scholarship-driven programs rarely can. That balance is exactly what draws students here.

Reid Omilian ’26, a two-time diving champion and three-time All-American, had Division I offers.

“Just because it’s D3 doesn’t mean it’s not competitive,” he says. “But I wanted research, clubs, and the chance to try other things.”

The result: Chapman athletes don’t live in a silo. They bring lessons from athletics into academics, careers and campus life—and vice versa. They’re tested in competition, but shaped by the variety of commitments they balance at the same time.

More Than One Way To Lead

Chapman’s athletes prove that leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some are loud motivators. Others guide with subtlety or precision. The culture makes space for each style to count.

Sophie Srivastava ’22, a volleyball setter and psychology Ph.D. candidate, once tried the rah-rah approach and quickly abandoned it. Instead, she left teammates sticky notes with encouragement and reminders. That quiet orchestration helped her earn All-American honors—and become Chapman’s first finalist for NCAA Woman of the Year.

Omilian embodies another path. A high-level recruit, he deliberately chose balance over intensity, seeking
opportunities beyond just diving—from research to clubs to campus involvement.

Together with Malen, they illustrate something generational. For today’s students, leadership is less about commanding and more about influence, empathy and adaptability. At Chapman, those versions of leadership aren’t just accepted—they’re sharpened.

What Pressure Teaches

At Chapman, pressure isn’t just part of the game—it’s part of the education. Every athlete learns to compete in public, and to fail in public.

“You do all your work, then on game night people judge you on that score,” says Dan Krikorian ’07, Chapman’s head men’s basketball coach and a leadership professor. “Sometimes the shot just doesn’t fall.”

That visibility forces more than resilience. It builds accountability. In the classroom, sometimes student-athletes are responsible only to themselves. On the field, every choice touches teammates, coaches, even the history of the program. “If you don’t bring the energy, if you don’t pass the ball, it doesn’t just affect you—it affects everyone wearing that jersey,” Krikorian says.

Conflict comes with the territory. Teammates clash, players argue with coaches, mistakes spark tension. Chapman doesn’t paper over those moments—it treats them like curriculum.

“There’s no great team you can show me that didn’t go through healthy conflict all season long,” Krikorian says. “The question is, do you understand how to resolve it?”

Resolution can mean a one-on-one meeting, a small-group sit-down, or a confrontation in front of the whole team. Sometimes coaches model it, sometimes players take the lead. By graduation, athletes have lived through what most young professionals encounter years later: layered accountability and the skill to turn conflict into cohesion.

Standards Eat Rules For Breakfast

Krikorian admits he once thought rules were the way to control a team. “If you’re late, you don’t play. But what if it’s the first time in four years?” Rules, he learned, box you in.

Standards do something else: they create culture. At Chapman, expectations aren’t enforced from the top down—they’re carried by the group. Seniors remind underclassmen. Teammates push each other.

“At the end of the day, that’s what we’re striving for,” says Krikorian. “A culture so strong it runs itself. I don’t have to say it. Players already know it.”

That’s the Chapman difference: athletes don’t act a certain way because they’re told to. They do it because they’ve chosen to live up to the standard.

Krikorian has watched volatile freshmen—emotional, quick to unravel after a mistake—mature into seniors whose steadiness makes them anchors for the team. Those players become the best mentors, because they’ve lived the growth themselves. Leadership learned that way sticks.

Why Recruiters Notice

Jennifer Kim, Associate Vice President of Career and Professional Development, sees it firsthand. “DirecTV asked specifically for Chapman athletes,” Kim says. “PNC Bank did the same. They know they’ll get candidates who can take feedback and turn it into something positive and actionable.”

That pattern plays out in alumni stories. Elliot Cooley ’14, the Cheverton Trophy winner for his graduating class— Chapman’s highest honor—was a football player and double major in math and computer science. Cooley went from Chapman to Microsoft, then into leadership at his family’s seed company.

“What matters most isn’t where you go,” he says. “It’s what you do once you’re there. Chapman prepared me for both.”

Recruiters describe Chapman athletes as composed, adaptable, and capable of juggling priorities. A résumé that includes athletics, internships, Greek life, and strong academics isn’t unusual here—it’s the norm.

Panthers For Life

The Chapman difference is scale and culture. The university is small enough that professors and coaches know students by name, close enough to major industries with international reach to open opportunities, and flexible enough to let athletes compete while building full lives—studying abroad, leading clubs and holding internships.

And the community lasts long after the season ends. Krikorian still attends former players’ weddings, mentors them through careers, even fields questions about parenting. The network is as formative as the games. For families weighing options, Chapman offers something rare: students who learn to thrive under pressure, to lead in their own voice, and to carry those skills into whatever comes next.

At Chapman, competition becomes character. And character becomes leadership for life.