Getting top grades while playing competitive sports is a very difficult balancing act. For 13 members of the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack Athletic program, they were able to do it and have received national attention.
They have been named either Canadian College Athletic Association or Canadian Interuniversity Sport Scholar-Athletes. The criteria is that they achieved a minimum Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.5.
Of the 13, four of the honoured athletes are members of the Womens Volleyball Team—Stine Christiansen ( Ribe,Denmark), Tanis Hoeltgen(Langley BC), Marilia Vasconcellios (Jundiai, Brazil) and Taylor Hall (Burnaby, BC).
“I’m very proud of the girls,” says WolfPack coach Carrie Barrett. “Its really hard to be a top notch student and athlete. Success in the classroom is one of the key points I look at when I recruit young women. Thompson Rivers University has the programs in place to help all athletes be a success in school. I’m just playing a small part in steering them in the right Direction.”
Badminton was second in the number of athletes they had achieve the lofty academic marks: Brennan Arduini (Kamloops BC), Ema Salja (Kamloops, BC) and Venita Colton (Kamloops, BC).
Womens Soccer and Womens Basketball each had two scholar athletes. Soccer players Cari Sutcliffe (Kamloops BC) and Alex Muzzin (Coquitlam, BC ) were CCAA Scholar-Athletes. Kayla Forsyth (Vernon BC) and Alix Stupich ( Ladysmith, BC) were named CIS All Academics.
The other WolfPack Athletes being honoured were Brent Hall of Red Deer, Alberta (Mens Volleyball) and Mike Tomlinson of Campbell River BC (Baseball).
T.R.U. Athletic Director Ken Olynyk stated “Its another example of what our program is all about: Top calibre athletes who are first rate students. These are people who’ll go out into our society once they graduate and make a difference:.