Every semester, President Foster takes the men’s and women’s varsity teams with the highest GPA out to breakfast. This semester the leaders are men’s golf and women’s lacrosse.
“We put more emphasis on our athletes’ academics at CMU and that’s why, the last five years, I have said each semester, ‘show me the team with the highest GPA, men’s and women’s, and I’ll take them out to breakfast’,” Foster said.
The breakfast is not required for teams and for Foster it is a way to recognize the priority as student-athletes. The athletes enjoy the experience as well.
“Breakfast with the president means a lot to me and the guys. We all believe it is very important to excel in the classroom,” a golfer for the men’s team, Trey Lambrechte said.
“It’s a nice little recognition and incentive,” said Matt Ward, the coach of CMU men’s golf, who puts a high priority on his athletes’ academic performance and is very proud of what his athletes have accomplished. The team has gone to breakfast with Foster six of the last seven times, according to Ward.
“From my standpoint, they are students first and athletes second. So, for them to carry the GPA’s that they’ve carried since I have been here, it has made us better as a team. Overall this last semester, we were a 3.6,” Ward said.
Coach Ward holds a unique philosophy as a varsity coach.
“We carry a good GPA because they aren’t going to be professional golfers they are going to be professionals in something else, whether its business or engineering, so for me it is a much bigger deal to have them get good grades than it is to be great golfers, not that we don’t want to win and work on that,” Ward said. “My athletes need to know something more than just golf when college is all said and done. I try to instill that in them and they take it pretty seriously.
“They know when I am recruiting them what my expectations will be for grades and academics. If it drops below a 3.0 we’ll have a sit-down discussion to help bring them back up. There isn’t any real threat involved, but nobody wants to get the talking to from their coach. I’m not sure if it is the breakfast they get the grades for or just me being upset if they don’t do well in school,” Ward said.
Even if it isn’t the main incentive the athletes enjoy the reward for their work.
“The breakfast with President Foster was truly a treat. It was too kind of him to take the team out for a nice meal. It is great to see his support for CMU’s athletes. It means a lot that he acknowledges our hard work and encourages us to succeed,” Sophie Zlatarich, a freshman on women’s lacrosse, said.
President Foster will continue to hold the breakfast as a way to reinforce his position on academics over athletics. “It’s a nice reflection on why we are Division II and what we value, which is academics and student-athletes,” Foster said.
