Academic Leap By MSU Football Spurs Record Men's GPA
Head coach Sylvester Croom's Bulldogs turned in a 2.55 GPA this past spring, a third straight semester of improvement in the classroom for the team, and the highest by the sport since Fall 1996. That performance represented a jump from 2.39 and 2.28 the previous two semesters, and was just .05 from matching the sport's all-time best.
Men's tennis recorded the highest male team sport GPA with a 3.52. It was that sport's eighth straight semester above a 3.4. Men's golf, like football, recorded its second-highest classroom mark, recording a 3.33 during the spring.
M-State's women's sports posted their second-highest overall GPA in Spring 2005 with a 3.22, just .01 from their all-time record.
Women's tennis turned in a sport-best 3.67 GPA, while softball recorded its second-highest showing, a 3.40. Golf (3.59), soccer (3.28) and volleyball (2.96) all improved their grade point averages over the past semester.
Overall, 75 scholarship student-athletes made either the Dean's Scholar (3.5) or President's Scholar (3.8) list. In addition, 141 of the 269 scholarship student-athletes (52.4 percent) recorded a 3.0 GPA or better during the spring.
MSU scholarship student-athletes who earned President's Scholar recognition include: Beth Irwin, Amanda Mathis and Marli Mikulecky (women's golf), April Berry, Sara Moore, Heidi Ondra and Karen Sandrik (soccer), Hayle Guess, Lindsay Hunley, Kelli Miller and Callye Williams (softball), Zsuzsanna Fodor, Renee Joseph and Hayley Rudman (women's tennis), Annie Falor, Joy Griffith, Liz Grube, Meggan Hodge, Lacey Johnson, Michelle Kinney, Zita Magloire, Jennifer McPherson, Jourdan Steinberg and Mina Thorstenson (women's track), Rachel Cooper (volleyball), Brooks Dunn, Ben Grisham and Justin Pigott (baseball), Wesley Morgan (men's basketball), Slovakia Griffith and Will Prosser (football), Florent Girod and Jose-Carlos Pinto (men's tennis), Matt Denton, Pad Judd and Robert Scribner (men's track).
The MSU athletic academic office began tracking scholarship student-athlete grades for comparative purposes in 1993.