Men\u2019s\nSpring Student-Athlete of the Year<\/a>. Incredible. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThis\naward is the MIAA\u2019s highest honor for student-athletes. It is based on the\nathletic, academic, and campus\/community service accomplishments of individuals\nwho are juniors or seniors in athletic eligibility and have a grade point\naverage of at least 3.25. This also means that Fort Hays State has two of the\nfour MIAA student-athletes of the year, as well as finalists for the awards for\nseven consecutive years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan\nis our first-ever male recipient of this prestigious award. He is a talented\nyoung man, an accomplished student-athlete, and a highly engaged student leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan\nhas been near perfect in the classroom these past three years, earning a 3.97 GPA\nas a management major. He has received many athletic and academic accolades,\nand most importantly, he has been a friend to many Tigers and an\neffective campus leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan\nhas been a member of our student government association and will serve as the\nstudent body vice president this next year. He has been an active leadership\nteam member of Christian Challenge and has participated in multiple community\nservice projects. He was even part of the four-member student team who designed\n\u201cMeHe,\u201d a mobile phone app centered on maintaining positive mental health, that\nwon the 2020 Kansas Startup competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\nsummer, Ryan was on staff with Project Apprentice, a Rock Hill\nChurch-based program that works to develop future Christian leaders. He\nalso helped raise proceeds for Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City,\nwhere he coordinated fundraising events and volunteered to help\nthe organization provide a safe, loving, and educational environment for\nchildren in poverty. Children in the program are mentored in the arts,\nsports, or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). With such\nremarkable experiences under his belt, I have no doubt Ryan is becoming an amazing\nmentor. He has the heart, the smarts, and the discipline to help these young\nstudents thrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan\ngrew up in Bennington, a small town in north-central Kansas, the son of former\ncollege athletes and the middle sibling in a family of five. Ryan described growing\nup as a constant competition with his two older brothers, who he followed to\nFort Hays State. Ryan decided to major in business and try his luck at\ncompeting in the pole vault at the college level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\nsummer between high school and college, Ryan attended a pole vault camp at FHSU,\ncatching the attention of our pole-vaulting coach, Randy Stanley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI watched him and thought, \u2018Oh, my goodness, this guy has some talent,’ \u201d Coach Stanley said. \u201cHe\u2019s got really good speed and is so aggressive and has so much potential. I thought that once he got to college and could focus on one sport, who knows how much he could improve?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And improve he did. Earlier in the year, Ryan claimed the NCAA Division II National Championship in the pole vault, setting FHSU\u2019s outdoor record mark of 17 feet, 2.75 inches. That\u2019s more than three times my height! Ryan also set the indoor record earlier in the year at 16 feet, 11.5 inches. He went on to be named the MIAA Men\u2019s Spring Student-Athlete of the Year this past June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan\nwill return to campus in the fall to serve as the student body vice president,\ntake on new challenges as a student-athlete, and earn two bachelor\u2019s degrees \u2013 one\nin business administration and management with a concentration in human\nresources (HR) and one in Spanish. He then plans to begin work on a master\u2019s in\nprofessional studies in HR management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Brazilian\nsoccer player Pele\u2019 said, \u201cSuccess is no accident. It is hard work,\nperseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you\nare doing or learning to do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A great quote that I think really captures the essence of Ryan Stanley, an incredible young man for whom I am so grateful for choosing to call Tiger Nation home and for leading our campus with integrity, resilience, and strong character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tisa Mason is president of Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was just a few weeks back when I enthusiastically shared the good news that Whitney Randall, a senior women\u2019s basketball student-athlete, was selected as… <\/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-60356","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\/60356","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=60356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60357,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60356\/revisions\/60357"}],"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=60356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}