There are many aspects of Pepperdine University that I appreciate, as well as a few that I don't, and one of the former is the University's approach toward intercollegiate athletics. The University competes in Division I, which is no small challenge for a school with less than 3000 undergraduates, and by-and-large, the participants are truly scholar-athletes. Admission to Seaver College is highly selective, and there is no allowance for accepting any athletes who clearly could not handle the competetive academic program.
A testament to the quality of the student-athletes at Pepperdine is winning the 2011-2012 Division I-AAA Athletic Directors Association All-Sports Trophy which is awarded to the Division I school without football that has the most post-season success over the course of the school year. This is the third time that Peppedine has claimed the title, with a recent highlight being a National Championship in women's sand volleyball. I believe that this is Pepperdine's 20th National Championship and the first for a women's team - quite an accomplishment for a small school. While a few Pepperdine student-athletes go on to succeed in pro sports, the vast majority use their degrees to pursue careers in medicine, law, business, etc. Kudos to the Waves!!!
2 comments:
My thoughts turn to Northwestern, known for academics as opposed to athletics, but still a member of the Big Ten. One of their cheers while losing to an opponent went like this: "That's alright. That's okay. We're going to be your boss some day."
And Northwestern has also had some very good teams. I think that there is an MIT cheer that goes "Cosine, secant, tangent, sine, 3.14159." :-)
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