Ti­tle: Bethel Stu­dent Ath­letes Hon­ored at NAIA Scholar Awards

MISHAWAKA—The NAIA Scholar Awards took place on Sept. 15 this year, and Bethel had 18 teams hon­ored, as well as 95 ath­letes. The NAIA Scholar Awards are de­signed to rec­og­nize the hard work that stu­dent-ath­letes have done not only on the field but in the class­room. To qual­ify for the in­di­vid­ual award the ath­lete must be an up­per­class­man with a 3.5 GPA or higher. For the team award the team must have a 3.0 GPA as a team.

“"It's very im­por­tant to the ath­letic de­part­ment,” Bethel Ath­letic Di­rec­tor, Tony Na­tali said. “It's nice to see us to be very well rep­re­sented. We had about 10 more in­di­vid­ual hon­orees than last year.”

The Bethel ath­letic teams that qual­i­fied for the team award were: Wom­en’s Ten­nis, Men’s Golf, Wom­en’s Bas­ket­ball, Wom­en’s Lacrosse, Wom­en’s Swim­ming & Div­ing, Wom­en’s Soc­cer, Wom­en’s Cross Coun­try, Men’s Soc­cer, Base­ball, Soft­ball, Men’s Cross Coun­try, Wom­en’s In­door and Out­door Track & Field, Wom­en’s Vol­ley­ball, Men’s Swim­ming & Div­ing, Men’s In­door and Out­door Track & Field, and Wom­en’s Golf. 

“Our av­er­age is about 17-20 teams dur­ing my tenure,” Na­tali said. “I think we are to­ward the top of the av­er­age as far as the num­ber of teams go.”

One as­pect of the Ath­letic De­part­ment that has been pushed is their motto of “Get Used to Dif­fer­ent.” This idea has been pushed both on the ath­letic field, but as well as the class­room. One idea that Na­tali has pushed is to be dif­fer­ent and not fol­low the “sta­tus quo.” The idea to be dif­fer­ent is not for the sake of chang­ing, but to have coaches and team­mates to chal­lenge each other to grow aca­d­e­m­i­cally, ath­let­i­cally, and spir­i­tu­ally.

For more in­for­ma­tion on Bethel Uni­ver­sity ath­let­ics visit https://​www.bupi­lots.com/​in­dex.