FIU is finishing up its first season in Conference USA and finishing up the 2013-2014 academic year with exams next week.
On April 10, C-USA released their list of athletes who are present on the Academic Honor Roll for that time period.
This list of 3,213 male and female athletes from different schools that have competed in Division-IA sports had over 150 names – 154 exactly – that are familiar to FIU.
Tennis above the rest
Regardless of the amount of players on a team, having an entire roster on the honor roll by the conference is a fantastic accomplishment.
The tennis program, led by Head Coach Katarina Petrovic, had all six tennis players named to the list.
I do acknowledge that six is a small number, and it may not be as impressive, if say, they had a team of 24 and all of them got on, but, it can’t be taken away from them that as a group.
They all worked hard in the classroom, as well as on the courts, to be successful.
Women lead the way
In looking at the list, it is clear that the Women’s teams at FIU did much better in the classroom than the men in 2013-2014.
The best comparisons of this are Men’s and Women’s basketball and baseball to softball.
Men’s basketball, led by first year Head Coach Anthony Evans, only had three athletes named to the list: junior forward Adrian Diaz, junior guard Marco Porcher Jimenez and freshman guard Dominique Williams. However, Head Coach Cindy Russo had 12 of her 15 athletes’ names on the list.
Between baseball and softball, there were a combined 24 of 58 athletes.
This may sound pretty good, but when you break it down, 11 of the 18 in that list were from the softball program while the other 13 of 40 are from baseball.
105 of the names out of the 154 were female.
That is a large number, and something that is a great accomplishment to achieve.
However, it does raise some questions as to why the men are slacking in the classroom.
It also adds to the fact that the C-USA Commisioner’s Academic Medal List, which honors those who have a cumulative GPA of over 3.75 had 19 FIU student-athletes and 18 of those are female.
More than expected
The football program had 10 players named to the list.
This is honestly more than I expected.
After knowing that 17 players were academically ineligible for the 2013-2014 season, I had only expected four or five student athletes.
It is terrible that on the list of 71 students, only 10 were named to the list.
As a physical education major on the coaching track, I know that in the future, I will not find it anywhere near acceptable for only 14 percent of my athletes to have good grades.
I do acknowledge as well that it was a special circumstance with a new coach, losing some better players, and other various actions that happened, but this coming year, the grades of the football team should be looked at under a larger microscope.
Overall
It concerns me that more student-athletes were not a part of this list.
I would encourage these players to look at the title that they are able to carry.
The first part of their title is student, and with only this small percentage of athletes getting recognized for having a high cumulative GPA, it will stun me that if not only they, but their coaches as well do not make a push for near 100 percent of eligible players to be named to this list within the coming years.
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Baseball Honor Roll.”]
Alec Beyersdorf
Nathan Burns
Zachary Carter
Charles Cormier
Kolby Follis
Julius Gaines
Aramis Garcia
Michael Gomez
Carlos Lopez
Louis Silverio
Tyler Sullivan
Zachary Sweety
Roche Woodard
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Men’s Basketball Honor Roll.”]
Adrian Diaz
Marco Porcher Jimenez
Dominique Williams
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Women’s Basketball Honor Roll.”]
Aleksandra Bodlovic
Jerica Coley
Marita Davydova
Katrina Epnere
Karrah Johnson
Zsofia Labady
Tynia McKinzie
Timeyin Oritsesan
Kiandre’a Pound
Taylor Shade
Nikolina Todorovic
Brianna Wright
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Men’s Cross Country Honor Roll.”]
Brandon Ballard
Dylan Cook
Daniel Fernandez
Brandon Jones
Eli Monzon
Daniel Puentes
Orlando Rodriguez
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Football Honor Roll.”]
Richard Burrows
Ricky Fernandez
Cody Hodgens
Yousif Khoury
Fred Porter
Donald Senat
Austin Taylor
Delmar Taylor
Cory White
Mitch Wozniak
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Women’s Golf Honor Roll.”]
Coralia Arias
Shelby Coyle
Sophie Godley
Carla Jane
Meghan Maclaren
Jasmine Wade
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Sand Volleyball Honor Roll.”]
Marina Boulanger
Ellyssa Citron
Maria Coukoulis
Alexa Diaz
Tina Toghiyani
Airam Trillo
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Men’s Soccer Honor Roll.”]
Roberto Alterio
Luke Bray
Gonzalo Frechilla
Sebastian Frings
Marvin Hezel
Nicholas Midttun
Daniel Mion
David Mitchell
Robin Spiegel
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Women’s Soccer Honor Roll.”]
Shelby Bowden
Ellen Crist
Marie Egan
Talia McMurtrie
Crystal McNamara
Morgan Morris
Jessica Palacio
Nicole Rios
Alyssa Robinson
Ashleigh Shimm
Marlena Stablein
Sara Stewart
Patricia Tomanon
Johanna Volz
Madlen Weinhardt
Paula Zuluaga
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Softball Honor Roll.”]
Samantha Green
Corinne Jenkins
Breanna Kaye
Brianne Kimura
Christine Marte
Marisa McGregor
Kennah Orr
Rebekah Sanchez
Rachel Slowik
Gabriella Spallone
Stephanie Texeira
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Softball Honor Roll.”]
Jennifer Alfani
Kiara Anderson
Sabrina Beaupre
Mary Boucher
Jessica Chadwick
Sarah D’Antoni
Katelyn Duranso
Nadia Farrugia
Anna Jonsson
Lily Kaufmann
Jeanmarie Madison
Danielle Meara
Melissa Moreno
Maria Therese Nord
Sonia Perez-Arau
Valeriia Popova
Marina Ribi
Alaina Smith
Courtney Vander Schaaf
Rebecca Wilde
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Tennis Honor Roll.”]
Giulietta Boha
Valentina Briceno
Tina Mohorcic
Nina Nagode
Carlotta Orlando
Aleksandra Trifunovic
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Men’s Track and Field Honor Roll.”]
Jamal Dorviller
Pablo Espitia
Christopher Lickfield
Garry Louima
Christopher Prophete
Roberto Salvador
Aubrey Smith
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Women’s Track and Field Honor Roll.”]
Maria Alea
Chantae Barnett
Destiney Burt
Cierra Campbell
Chandra Fulwood
Jessica Gehrke
Adrienne Gerzeny
Anna Heinzman
Tiffani Hernandez
Michelle Howell
Tetisheri Menna
Isolda Montiel
Bianca Morrison
Caroline Reiser
Katarina Rodriguez
Lexis Shields
Catherine Ventura
Desmika White
La’Shae White
[/show_hide]
[show_hide title=”Click here for the Volleyball Honor Roll.”]
Silvia Carli
Lucia Castro
Carolyn Fouts
Ashlee Hodgskin
Gloria Levorin
Jessica Mendoza
Maja Rosko
Kimberly Smith
Brittany Spencer
[/show_hide]
-rhys.williams@fiusm.com
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