What an incredible year it has been for Tiger Athletics. Back-to-back MIAA football championships, men\u2019s soccer makes it to the Final Four \u2013 and fights through eight penalty kicks with fierce grit and determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this last weekend, our women\u2019s basketball team won the\nMIAA tournament championship and the right to host the NCAA II Central Region\nchampionship this coming weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also last weekend, wrestler Brandon Ball, a junior from Great Bend who was competing for a national championship in Cleveland, Ohio, ended up with a 28-2 record for the season and his second All-American honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And in Pittsburg, Brett Meyer, a Scott City senior, earned his fifth All-America honor in the mile run while competing for the national championship. Kolt Newell, a Plainville senior seeking the national high jump championship, also was named an All-American.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am inspired by our student-athletes. As a university, we\nrely on our student-athletes to tell our institutional story by how they\npractice and play, their character on and off the field, as well as their\nsuccess in the classroom. They work hard to hone their skills \u2013 often making\nsacrifices in other areas of their life to excel as an athlete, and they must\nbe good time managers to ensure their commitments to their educations and to\ntheir sports are in balance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The office of the president affords me many ceremonial privileges for which I feel very grateful \u2013 from shaking every student\u2019s hand as they cross the stage at commencement to standing with our four-time national champion shotgun team as they were introduced and applauded on the floor of the Kansas House of Representatives and Senate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year, I got to hand the MIAA trophy to Coach Chris Brown (Coach of the Year, for the second consecutive year) for the football team championship as well as to Coach Tony Hobson (also Coach of the Year) for the women\u2019s basketball team\u2019s regular-season MIAA championship \u2013 and to congratulate Tony himself as the winningest women\u2019s basketball coach ever for FHSU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love those moments of saying, \u201cGreat job\u201d and \u201cI am so\nproud of you.\u201d Those moments warm my heart and fill me with joy, and lately I\nhave had lots of opportunities to celebrate our student athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February, we recognized more than 300 student athletes for\ntheir academic success. These were students who, despite the long hours they\nput into their sports activities, earned a 3.0 cumulative GPA in either the\nspring 2018 or fall 2018 semesters. We call every student athlete to the floor\nof the basketball arena to line up with their parents for recognition and\napplause from our fabulous fans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking of fans \u2013 ours are passionate about Tiger Nation. Love that! Our success has been fueled by many, many donors, as well as those who purchase tickets to our events. The financial support has enabled us to get stronger and be better. Alumnus Peter Werth flew the women\u2019s basketball team to Connecticut so they could meet and compete against the legendary UConn team. What an incredible life-memory he created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alumnus Russ Pfannenstiel created the Distinguished Tiger\nLeadership Award to recognize one male and one female student-athlete who\npractice the extraordinary volunteerism and community involvement and exemplify\nhard work, teamwork, endurance, a positive attitude, dedication, sacrifice and commitment,\nand who always exhibit an uplifting personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tatyana Legette, a senior basketball player from Topeka, is\nthe 2019 Female Distinguished Tiger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wrestler Micquelle Robinson, a senior from Wichita, is the\n2019 Male Distinguished Tiger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is thrilling to have all these outstanding student\nathletes \u2013 each with a personal story, source of motivation and inner strength,\nand each a champion in their own right. I am awed by these young people, who\nare firmly rooted in who they are and who positively engage with our campus and\nour community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am proud of them, their coaches, their faculty, and their families and friends who helped shape the hearts, minds and characters of these champions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What an incredible year it has been for Tiger Athletics. Back-to-back MIAA football championships, men\u2019s soccer makes it to the Final Four \u2013 and fights… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12323,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-life","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Mason-Tisa-040A6662.jpg?fit=750%2C1050&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44414,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44412\/revisions\/44414"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}