Time to celebrate the scholar-athlete

While the end of the school year and kick off of summer means the end of game coverage for a couple months, it also signals the start of one of my favorite projects.
Granted, by August I along with my fellow sports writers will be itching to get back out to football and volleyball games. However, the summer gives me a chance to restart something I look forward to each year…the honoring of Manchester High School’s scholar-athletes.
Beginning today and lasting throughout the summer, The Manchester Enterprise sports staff will run feature stories on some of the top scholar-athletes in the Class of 2010.
I participated in a similar project at my old job in Adrian. There, our staff took nominations from the athletic directors of the 13 high schools in Lenawee County, went through the hundreds of athletes, came up with a top-10, a second team and made the rest honorable mention. On top of that, we took the top-10, chose one to be our Scholar-Athlete of the Year and highlighted each of the 10 with features in a special section.
When I brought the scholar-athlete project to Manchester in 2008, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Would having just one school to cover make it easier to come up with a top-10 among the senior class? Or would there be enough?
Over the two years, the project has been a tremendous success, with a combined 21 young men and women being honored for their success and positive feedback from the community.
The Class of 2010 has doubled the fun this year, as we have 21 scholar-athletes that will be honored. At first this presented a dilemma, as there are only 10 editions to runs these (the final round will be August 19). We thought about choosing a top-10 and making a second team at first, but in the end just decided to run two per week (one week in late July, there will be three). After all, each student on here is deserving of this recognition.
Each scholar-athlete that will be featured – Stephanie Ball, Sarah Barnett, Amanda Barker, Megan Bossory, Rob Carver, Logan Caszatt, Ryan Ernst, Brooke Fuller, Jimmy Hamilton, Taylor Heldt, Matt Johnson, Emily Lobbestael, Roxanne Rickert, Myra Sanford, Tracy Schaible, Stephen Sheler, Claire Simpson, Jenny Stautz, Stephanie Steele, Liz Timoszyk and Emily Werner – represent what’s right about the Class of 2010 and high school athletics in general. Not only have they excelled on the field or court over the past four years, they’ve also maintained high academic standards (each are 3.4 GPAs or higher) and have been active figures in the community.
Among the 21 students, there are multiple-sport athletes, All-Cascades Conference award winners, National Honor Society members, Dutch Day mentors, class officers, Civic Club (formerly Optimist) Students of the Month.
In the fall, the scholar-athletes will be challenging themselves with tough majors at high-quality colleges and universities. This group features majors in business, engineering, biology, exercise science, nursing, foreign language and more.
These young men and women are true role-models to the Manchester community. Having to balance sports, academics and everyday life is not an easy task, and these 21 students are a tribute to Manchester Community Schools, their coaches, teachers, teammates, friends and families.
I’ve been in Manchester for three and a half years now, and the amount of talented students here continues to amaze me. Once again, this summer is a celebration of the Manchester scholar-athlete. Hopefully you the readers enjoy learning more about some of the community’s best.