Student Athletes Soar at Embry-Riddle

They score as well in the classroom as they do on the field

But in the back seat of the team bus, the glow of a laptop computer shows that one player is still hard at work. Relief pitcher Kevin Hawkins had little time for sleep during the 2000-2001 season.

For Hawkins, 22, who at the time was a senior majoring in computer science and maintaining a 3.67 grade point average (GPA), the 4-1/2 hour drive back from a road game meant more time to work on his book.

His 832-page volume, published in May 2001, is called OpenGL Game Programming and is now used as a textbook in an Embry-Riddle computer graphics course. It's also available at a bookstore near you.

Hawkins, now a graduate student in software engineering, still pitches for the Eagles, still operates a popular website on computer-game development and, naturally, has a brain teeming with ideas for future projects.

The athletic rosters of Embry-Riddle, a member of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, are loaded with the multitalented -- student athletes who make excellent grades, win academic as well as athletic awards, write books, build moon-buggies, get elected to campus offices, and give international corporations advice.

Why? Because Embry-Riddle athletes typically are students whose academic credentials could get them into just about any college.

They are looking for a particular combination that Embry-Riddle provides: academic excellence in highly technical fields, plus a chance to continue to play the sports they love.

Embry-Riddle coaches say some of their best finds are athletes they never recruited. Hawkins, for example, was visiting campus to check out the computer department when he crossed the street to visit coach Greg Guilliams.

Athletic director and head basketball coach Steve Ridder has a number of similar stories.

Kyle Mas, a 2001 graduate in aerospace engineering with a 3.96 GPA, dropped into Ridder's office unannounced and unknown during an informal campus visit while he was in high school.

Mas, who went to high school with Hawkins in Coral Springs, Fla., became a three-time Academic All-American and now is in graduate school at the Joint Institute for the Advancement of Flight Sciences, a collaborative program of NASA and George Washington University.

Ryan Bailey, a 1996 aeronautical science graduate who is now an Air Force pilot, was another drop-in who had all the right stuff for aviation and was also an all-state high school basketball player back home in Mississippi.

Taken as a group, the athletes in 11 sports at the Daytona Beach campus posted an average GPA of 3.07 for the Fall 2001 term. The campuswide average was 2.88.

Embry-Riddle's Prescott campus has only two sports. The volleyball team posted a 3.1 GPA last fall, the wrestling team a 2.7. The average GPA for all students at Prescott last fall was 3.02.

Embry-Riddle athletes tend to be good at a variety of things, but they are all champions in one field: time management.

Just ask Prescott wrestler Dan Maynard, who qualified for nationals this spring, about his schedule.

Maynard, 22, who has a 3.5 GPA in aerospace studies, is also president of the Student Government Association, a post that requires 14-16 hours per week. He works another 15 hours weekly in the campus audiovisual lab.

As SGA president, Maynard is involved in producing a citywide talent show with proceeds going to charity. His other project is the safe-ride program, which he has expanded to aid any stranded student, not just one who has had too much to drink.

Maynard, from Brea, Calif., is considering a career as either a Coast Guard officer or a sky marshal.

Soccer player Marisa Wyssling, a Daytona Beach student, is a little embarrassed to admit that her GPA, which was a perfect 4.0 going into her senior year, has dropped to 3.8.

"I'm in much more difficult classes than at the beginning," says Wyssling, 21, of Amherst, N.Y., who is majoring in engineering physics.

She received her team's Scholar-Athlete Award for highest GPA the past three seasons and is a Presidential Scholar and an Academic All-American. She attends Embry-Riddle on a combination of academic and athletic scholarships.

"I'm very much an explorer, adventurer, curious," she says. "I could be happy doing many things."

Among the things she's done is to help design and build a moon-buggy that Embry-Riddle students raced against prototypes built by other schools. Her senior design project is to design a satellite to send to Mars. Wyssling has always dreamed of becoming an astronaut and will continue her education with that in mind.

In Prescott, senior volleyball player Kristin Holleran was nominated as an All-American scholar-athlete last season. She maintains a 3.49 GPA and serves as treasurer of the SGA.

"It takes a lot of careful planning," says Holleran, 21, of Spokane, Wash. "I find that the more things I have to do, the more things I can get done."

Holleran majors in science, technology, and globalization and in February was busy working on her senior thesis, a critique of three executive-search firms.

Jasmin Kadric, 26, came to Embry-Riddle because it was impossible to both attend university and play soccer back home in Germany.

He graduated with a 3.1 GPA in civil engineering and now has started his MBA.

Kadric has been an honorable-mention All-American twice, as well as NAIA Region XIV player of the year.

"It's good that we play only in the fall semester," he says. "During the season, your social life suffers, but if you love your sport, you're willing to give that up."

Kadric's long-term future will be in airport consulting or airline management back in Germany.

Once they graduate, former Embry-Riddle athletes continue to excel.

Al Jackson came to Embry-Riddle at a time when the athletic programs were just starting, and got his degree in aviation business administration in 1990.

Today, at 34, he works for Bergner Bockorny Inc. as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. His job is to advance legislation on behalf of clients that include Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and Northwest Airlines.

Jackson is in regular contact with congressional household names like Sen. Trent Lott and Reps. Dick Armey, Tom DeLay, and Dick Gephardt, plus John Mica, the chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, whose district includes Embry-Riddle's Daytona Beach campus.

"Words can't describe how critical my education at Embry-Riddle was," he says. "I know the issues in aviation because I was immersed in them there."

Jackson played both baseball and basketball, suffering through some long, ugly seasons as the basketball team struggled to get off the ground.

David Knudsen, a 1998 Prescott graduate who was one match away from making All-American twice as a wrestler, is now an electrical engineer for Honeywell in Albuquerque. He's working on a project to design displays and computers for F-18 fighter jets.

"Embry-Riddle's focus is on aviation, and from school I got the background to get in the door here," he says. "The wrestling helped me with time management, discipline, and goal-setting."

There is no end to Embry-Riddle athletes' success stories, just a limit on the space to tell them.

Embry-Riddle, the world's largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, meets the needs of students and industry through its educational, training, research, and consulting activities. Embry-Riddle educates 24,000 students annually through the master's level at residential campuses in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Prescott, Ariz., at more than 150 teaching centers in the United States and Europe, and through distance learning.

WHAT THEY'RE MAJORING IN
Daytona Beach campus (147 athletes)
1. Business, 25.9%
2. Aeronautical Science, 18.4%
3. Aerospace Studies, 9.5%
4. Aerospace Engineering, 7.5%
5. Aviation Management, 7.5%
6. Communication, 6.1%
7. Engineering Physics, 6.1%
8. Computer Science, 4.8%
9. Human Factors/Psychology, 4.8%
10. Civil Engineering, 4.1%