Colorado University Athletics
CU Athletics Honors Its Academic Best
April 22, 2014 | General, Herbst Academic Center
BOULDER - Over three dozen University of Colorado student-athletes, including a record-tying 21 with perfect 4.00 grade point averages last year, were honored for a variety of outstanding academic accomplishments Tuesday morning at the 22nd Annual Student-Athlete Academic Recognition Banquet.
Over 300 people attended the event, held in the Byron White Club Lounge at CU's Folsom Field.
The Clancy A. Herbst, Jr., Student-Athlete Achievement Award was presented to two recipients, Tony Jones (football) and Winde Janssens (tennis), as the award is given to athletes who overcome personal, academic or emotional challenges difficulties to succeed both academically and athletically.
Jones, who has four older siblings, will be the first in his family to graduate from college, while Janssens, who is from Peers, Belgium, has been dealing with her mother's illness since her freshman year and has made the nearly 5,000 mile trek between Boulder and her hometown several times.
The highest award a graduating senior can receive from the Pac-12 Conference is the Tom Hansen Medal, named for the league's longtime commissioner, and is based on the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics and leadership. Each school selects a male and female recipient, and these were presented to Shalaya Kipp (cross country and track) and Andreas Haug (men's skiing).
Four students were presented with the Scholar-Athlete Award, as the recipients include a member of the sophomore and junior classes and male and female members from the senior class who have accumulated the highest cumulative grade point average in their respective class (and are awarded by academic year, not eligibility class). The winners were:
- Andreas Haug, Sr., Skiing (3.893 GPA, Finance)
- Bridget Sweeney, Jr., Track & Field? (3.87 GPA, Communication)
- Rachel Viger, Sr., Cross Country & Track (3.99 GPA, Chemical Engineering)
- Brooke Wales, Soph., Skiing (3.870 GPA, Integrative Physiology)
Haug and Viger also received the honor their junior years.
Academic team winners for grade point average were the women's cross country team for a sport with its championship in the fall semester (3.405) and the women's ski team for those who compete in the spring semester (3.427). The women's skiers also won a fierce competition over five other programs for the most improved honor for a team, as its aggregate GPA rose .174 over the last two semesters, edging women's basketball, women's cross country, men's and women's golf and soccer.
In the 2013 calendar year, there were 21 student-athletes who studied to perfection, as in 4.00 grade point averages for at least one semester if not the full year. All were thus inducted into CU's 4.0 club; membership now stands at 273 since 1994 and the 21 for last year ties the most for a single year, matching the 2002 count. Those honored included Haug, Sweeney, Viger and Wales, with that quartet joined by:
David Emmert (majoring in Aerospace Engineering), Sophie Hallam-Eames (Environmental Studies), Cameron Hutchins (Classics), Nikki Look (Applied Mathematics), Lindsy Mattson (Communication and Economics), Amanda Ortiz (Integrative Physiology), Ben Saarel (Engineering Physics) and Elizabeth Tremblay (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology), all on the cross country and/or track teams; Thea Grosvold (Accounting and Finance), Ian Mallams (Environmental Studies and Geography), Maja Solbakken (Sociology) and Michael Vigers (Chemical and Biological Engineering), all members of the ski team; Shane Harris-Tunks (Advertising), basketball; Hayley Hughes (Finance), soccer; Carla Manzi Tenorio (Chemical Engineering), tennis; Will Oliver (Accounting and Finance), football; and Paige Soenksen (International Affairs), of CU's new varsity lacrosse team.
Out of 342 student-athletes, 154 attained a 3.0 grade point either cumulatively or for the spring and/or fall semesters through 2013, 71 of whom owned 3.5 averages or better. The fall grade point average of all 342 worked to a 2.898 was the best on record in over 20 years of compiling the information. Those are impressive numbers when realized that CU's curriculum is one of the toughest in Division I athletics, as evidenced by the roll call of majors being undertaken by many of the award winners.
Nikki Lindow, a senior on the volleyball team, Ashley Tiefel, a junior on the women's tennis squad and Pierce Murphy, a sophomore on CU's national championship cross country team, were recognized as recipients of the Most Improved Student-Athlete Awards.
There were four recipients of the Buffalo Leadership and Initiative Awards, given to the freshman, sophomore, junior and senior student-athletes who have exhibited outstanding initiative and demonstrates a strong commitment to service to the CU and Boulder communities. Those winners were Lindsay Hubbard (senior, cross country/track), Juda Parker (junior, football), Clare Wise (sophomore, skiing) and Sefo Liufau (freshman, football).
The Student Support Services Academic Award was presented to Conan Chen, a junior who has worked as a student assistant for two years athletics' IT office. The owner of a 3.233 grade point average in Electrical Engineering, this award is presented to a student worker who maintains a 3.0 GPA while demonstrating strong commitment and leadership to CU athletics.
Closing comments were made by Kipp, who cited a class she took as a freshman the CU Experience and an exercise required in the course where students had to create a resume four years later when they graduated. She recalled drawing hers up for the month of May 2014 back in 2010 and at the time, she thought everything she put on it was outrageous if not ridiculous. Yet almost everything she listed has come to fruition. In essence, she told the audience if your dreams aren't a little bit scary, you're not dreaming big enough.
