NATCHITOCHES – Northwestern State student-athletes have won the inaugural “Southland Strong” Community Service Award, which is awarded to the Southland Conference institution whose competitors record the most service hours during the academic year.
The award will be presented during the Southland Honors Ceremony May 19 at the Frisco Westin Stonebriar Hotel, culminating the annual conference spring business meetings involving leaders from all 13 conference members.
Northwestern State student-athletes completed 3,156 hours of community service for the academic year, which led all league schools by almost 900 hours. Sam Houston State finished behind NSU for the community service award, followed by Southeastern Louisiana, with both institutions logging more than 2,000 hours of community service. Central Arkansas, Lamar and McNeese State also contributed more than 1,000 service hours of work. As a conference, more than 14,000 service hours were recorded by student-athletes to better Southland communities.
“It’s a tribute to our student-athletes, first and foremost,” said NSU director of athletics Greg Burke. “We talk all the time about their very busy lives, and the expectations are so high, and the pressure is significant academically and athletically. To find time to do community service, make a difference for others, be a servant-leader, that’s really neat and very commendable.
“In some ways, community service is a good release for our young people. They are truly gratified by the opportunity to interact with the people they’re assisting and in many cases it’s an inspiring, uplifting and most often, very fun activity they remember among the very best parts of their college experience,” said Burke.
The Lady Demons softball team logged the most service hours in 2014-15 among NSU sports squads with 685 hours, followed by the women’s soccer team with 607 and the Demon football team with 509.5 hours.
The Student-Athlete Advisory Committee at NSU also put on a Southland Gives Back event in which student-athletes contributed time and energy to help the Natchitoches Area Jaycees donate over $19,000 worth of toys to more than 300 children in and around Natchitoches.
“The fact that our university, our student-athletes, our athletic department have earned this first-ever award makes me very proud. It makes our campus and community proud as well,” said Burke. “Community service is an integral part of the ‘personal responsibility’ credo in our department motto of ‘academic achievement, personal responsibility, competitive excellence’ and it’s very gratifying for NSU to receive this recognition for living out one of our cornerstone values.”
NSU Athletics is successfully upholding all three elements of the departmental motto. In each of the last two semesters, student-athletes have set record high cumulative grade point averages, a composite 2.96 for the fall 2014 semester by the nearly 400 competitors at NSU. On the fall Southland Commissioner’s Honor Roll recognizing competitors in fall sports with at least a 3.0 semester GPA, Northwestern State led all conference members with 96 honorees.
Over the last 26 months, NSU teams have won 10 Southland regular-season or tournament championships while five sports – men’s and women’s basketball, softball, women’s tennis and volleyball – have reached a combined eight NCAA Tournaments. Meanwhile, NSU’s track and field program has won 10 All-America awards for individual top 16 finishes at NCAA national meets and the Demons finished tied for 20th at the 2014 NCAA Outdoor Championships.
Earlier this week, for the second consecutive year, NSU student-athletes swept the Southland Conference’s Steve McCarty Citizenship Awards, given annually to the male and female competitors deemed most remarkable in their community service efforts among nominees from each of the Southland’s 13 member schools. Graduated soccer standout Jackie Strug was the women’s winner announced Tuesday, while junior football quarterback Daniel Hazlewood received the men’s McCarty Award.
The overall community service award announced Thursday was established to encourage and reward member institutions to give back to the community that supports them.
Along with campus-wide events, the Southland promotes three annual league-wide drives with the TOMS Shoe Drive or Samaritan’s Feet, which donates shoes to those in need, the Pull Tab Collection, which raises funds for the Ronald McDonald House at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and the Southland Gives Back event, which is a community service project in the local community leading up to winter break.
Source: http://www.nsudemons.com/news/2015/5/14/BB_0514154817.aspx
