Most Successful Grads

So our sports information director recently sent out an e-mail asking for a list of successful graduates for a series of articles he's working on. A couple of coaches hit "reply all" with some decent names, but in just a couple of minutes here's what I came up with:

• Alex Van Huis - admitted to four of the top fourteen biomedical engineering programs in the country (he didn't apply to the other ten) and is currently pursuing his PhD.
• Bryan Pelka - studying medicine at the armed services medical school in Bethesda (i.e. he's earning a salary instead of paying $100k/year in med school tuition).
• Ivan Manolov - recruited by Yahoo! out of school, quit that to make six-figures for a hot start-up in the valley (Honestly.com), though he's quitting that to work for another start-up (CollegeSwimming.com)
• Dr. Brad Wipfli - after studying neuroscience, Dr. Brad got his PhD from Arizona State. After this, he was awarded the 2009 dissertation of the year award from the National Association for Sport and Physical Education and is now a researcher at the Oregon Health & Science University.
• Nathan Fisher - just graduated from the National University of Health Sciences and is now a Chiropractor.
  
• Chris Trella - Getting Masters in Kinesiology from University of Johannesburg (South Africa) after teaching in Alaskan village and in China.
  
• Henry Somers & Nathaniel Chapman - rapidly rising up the corporate ladder for Oracle and Cummins up in the Twin Cities.
• Stacey Kiefer - Swimwear/Apparel Purchasing Manager with Adolph Kiefer & Associates. She's also a part-time model for Jockey International (photo right).
  
• Steve Szymanski - recruited straight out of Carthage to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the Big Five accounting firms.
• James Beaman & Charlie Staniger - James works at Corporate for Walgreens while Charlie is on the managerial fast-track and running the store at 18th street;
• Justin Reeder - Deputy Sheriff, Porter County Indiana; and
  
• Teachers & Coaches: Almost too many to mention and many I'm sure I've forgotten but they include Andy Bax & Tracey Keckler - both teachers here in KUSD; Tricia Biedron and Kristen Martin (Suburbs), Nick Parry (West Chicago), Jessica Bogie (Delta Aquatics), Delilah Center (Chesterton, Indiana) Amanda Croix (west point), really too many to mention
• 
  

I'm sure I've forgotten some, but not a bad list.

Top Honors

Just got word today that the Carthage Red Men posted a 3.23 GPA - the highest since we had just nine guys on the team back in 2002. Fully a dozen of our fourteen guys made the AD's Honor Roll for GPA's above 3.0. This represents the 11th consecutive semester and extends a sixteen-year run of Academic All-Americans as a team and extends a sixteen-year streak begun under Sue Nutty. By next week we should know where we rank in the nation.

Named Academic All-American were Bryan Pelka (who was also named to the ESPN The Magazine All-District Team), Stephen Schranck, Zach Jole and Nathan Fisher (right). Andy Bax and Bryce Davis were near misses but made the AD Honor Roll.

Also on the roll were: Jeremy Brandt, Paul Bustion, Scott Kaseska, Chris Steenrod, Chris Trella, and Alex Van Huis. No perfect 4.0's around, so we'll have to settle with Bryan and Alex at mere 3.92's.