Olympic Athlete to Highlight 2nd Annual Benefit Dinner, Coach Softball Clinic at Roger Williams University

BRISTOL, RI (09/10/2011)(readMedia)-- In the second annual Olympian Occasion event held at Roger Williams University, gold medalist Jessica Mendoza will visit the campus Saturday, Oct. 1 and Sunday, Oct. 2 to share her personal experience as a member of the United States Olympic Softball Team. Mendoza will be joined on Saturday by Wilma Briggs, a former member of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League.

Saturday evening, fans have the opportunity to meet the professional athletes at a benefit event for the RWU Hawks Softball team. The evening will include an autograph and photo session, dinner, and keynote speeches from each athlete. Sunday morning, Jessica Mendoza will conduct a youth players' clinic alongside RWU Head Coach Joyce Maudie and the RWU Hawks Softball Team, followed by a coaches one hour hitting clinic led by Ms. Mendoza.

Jessica Mendoza is a two-time Olympic medalist as an outfielder for the U.S. Women's National Softball Team. She helped the team to a gold medal in the 2004 Olympics and the silver medal in 2008. She is a three-time World Champion and three-time World Cup Champion, in addition to a two-time Pan American Gold Medalist. Mendoza was named 2006 USA Softball Athlete of the Year and was a four-time First Team All-American while at Stanford.

Wilma Briggs was a left fielder for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League until the league's close in 1954. A native of East Greenwich, R.I., Briggs played for seven seasons with the Fort Wayne Daisies and later the South Bend Blue Sox, finishing her career second all-time in home runs and fourteenth in runs batted in.

Sunday's softball clinic, open to girls grades 5-12, will feature segments of hitting, base-running, defense and conditioning drills. Registration will open at 8:30 a.m. and the training will conclude at 12:00 p.m. Ms. Mendoza and Coach Maudie will be assisted by the RWU Hawks Softball team in running the clinic skills sessions, concluding with an autograph session from 12:00 p.m. to 12:30 p.m. The coaches hitting clinic with Ms. Mendoza will follow from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

These events are separately priced at $50 for the dinner, $60 for one youth clinic session and $25 per coach for the coaches clinic, if registered by Friday, September 23. Walk-in clinic participants may attend at a cost of $75.00 for the youth session and $35.00 for the coaches session.

All dinner tickets must be purchased through advance online registration. Registration forms and additional information can be found by visiting the RWU Softball home page on www.rwuhawks.com and selecting "The Olympian Occasion" link on the right. Seating for the dinner will be limited; early registration is recommended and on a first come, first serve basis. All questions and inquiries can be directed to RWU Head Coach Joyce Maudie at jmaudie@rwu.edu.

About RWU: Roger Williams University located in Bristol, R.I. is a leading independent, coeducational liberal arts university with education for the professions, where students learn to be global citizens. With 42 academic programs, an array of co-curricular activities and study abroad opportunities on six continents, RWU is committed to its mantra of learning to bridge the world. In the last decade, the University has achieved unprecedented successes including recognition as one of the best colleges in the nation by Forbes, College of Distinction by Student Horizons, Inc. and as both a best college in the Northeast and one of the nation's greenest universities by The Princeton Review.