Athletes honored for academic achievements

Just before the Southeast Missouri State men's basketball team was getting ready to take on UT Martin at the Show Me Center on Feb. 12, the athletic department was holding its annual Scholar Athlete Dinner.

That night, the department honored 210 scholar athletes for earning a GPA of 3.0 or higher.

"It makes me feel very proud of the job our student athletes are doing in the classroom, but also too how our coaches understand the importance of our student athletes being successful in the classroom," Southeast athletic director Mark Alnutt said.

Out of the 210 student athletes recognized, 13 scholar athletes were granted the Medal of Honor, which is an award given out by the Ohio Valley Conference to student athletes that earned a perfect 4.0 GPA throughout the 2013-14 academic year at Southeast. One of the recipients of the Medal of Honor was senior baseball player Jason Blum.

"It's a compliment to the people that helped me along the way more than anything, honestly, because it's a big thanks to them as well," Blum said.

Along with the OVC Medal of Honor, Blum was also presented the Jewel Award. The Jewel Award is named after Don Jewel, a professor in the biology field. The award is given every year to the male senior athlete with the highest GPA for his college career.

Blum graduated with his undergraduate degree in finance in May of 2014 and has always prided himself at being the best and having a high GPA.

"That's always my goal because I obviously want to be the best at whatever I can be the best at," Blum said. "Anything I do I strive to be great. That's always one of my primary goals -- to control what I can control and not worry about what I can't."

With classes, practice, games and travel, managing studies and baseball can be tough.

"Thats probably one of the hardest parts of it all, but it's just knowing how much time you have and dedicating it to the perfect balance between the two," Blum said.

It wasn't always easy for Blum. He remembers the first few years of college being tough because he had to go through that adjustment from high school to college that every student goes through.

"Once you get used to it, you kind of get a routine and that makes it really nice and things go a lot more smoothly," Blum said.

"I commend everything he does," Alnutt said. "If that's someone that we can cookie cutter out and have a lot of Jason Blum's then we would have a great athletic department."

Also, recently both the women's and men's cross country teams earned U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association All-Academic Team awards for the 2014 season.

The women's team was ranked fourth highest in the nation with a cumulative GPA of 3.77. The men's team also ranked nationally on the list tied for 53rd with a GPA of 3.28.

Alnutt is very proud of the number of scholar-student awards received this year and is glad to see the number increase yearly. He wants to make sure that trend continues.

"All in all when you see that number it makes you very proud of the job were doing but at the same token you want to keep elevating that number," Alnutt said. "That's something we have been able to do every year was to grow that number and that's good to see that number increasing every year."