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Blazers Athletics produce top-tier student athletes
The Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) Blazers Athletics program has figured it out.
Last season, in particular, was a cut above the rest. Over half the teams from a variety of sports made conference finals, the women's volleyball team made an appearance at the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) National Championships, while the men's basketball team won gold with its first Manitoba Colleges Athletic Conference (MCAC) championship since 2017.
Even with those achievements on the field and court, one of the most impressive performances within the Blazers Athletics program is the high academic performance of its athletes.
"We do our best to cultivate a culture of excellence in all our varsity teams in athletics and academics," Russel Willms, Director of Athletics at CMU, says.
And it is working. An incredible 57 student athletes earned a 3.5 GPA or higher, which qualifies them for the CMU honour roll. Those numbers aren't simply statistics on paper; they have real-world effects on the students who qualify.
Blazers athletes not only perform in sport, they achive academically—57 student athletes were named to the CMU honour roll with a GPA of 3.5 or higher in 2023/24.
For CCAA volleyball and soccer, athletes can qualify for CCAA national scholar recognition by achieving honour roll status during their semesters of participation. CMU topped the MCAC on the CCAA National Scholar Award list with a total of 34 student-athletes for 2023/24.
"The notion of "student first, athlete second" is reinforced every year to our varsity teams, and our head coaches build on this in the cultures that they foster daily within the team community," Willms reflects. "In university sport, much of the mentorship responsibilities for young student-athletes is placed on senior student athletes."
Most of those success skills passed down by senior athletes are ones they picked up from their mentors and the mentors before them. It's a culture of professional conduct, both on and off the court, that Willms says is unique to CMU.
Ultimately, coaches also play a significant role in the academic outcome of student athletes. Coaches like MCAC Men's Volleyball Coach of the Year, Don Dulder, carve out specific time for their teams, either weekly or during heavy moments in the academic calendar when finals and exams come crashing down, for study and to allow the teammates to support each other in any academic way.
Willms highlights the tight-knit relationship between Athletics and CMU's Student Life department. The quality of CMU as a small university means that academically struggling student-athletes can use the Student Life resources—like Peer Assisted Learning, which is a peer-tutoring program run by a collective of student volunteers—in the same way that they would be able to use the weight room or the gymnasium.
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