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!!!
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."
ReplyDeleteAnd 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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