Michael Mardis, a
senior tight end on the Indiana State football team, and Jessica Zangmeister, a
junior on the Sycamore women’s cross country team, have been named the Sycamore
Scholar-Athletes of the Month, sponsored by State Farm Agent Sandy Bryant, for
the month of September.
Created in
September 2012, the Sycamore Scholar-Athlete of the Month Award, sponsored by
State Farm Agent Sandy Bryant, will be presented each month (September through
April) to a male and female student-athlete who has excelled in academics,
athletics and leadership. The program is
designed to recognize Sycamore student-athletes for being positive role models
for Indiana State University and to motivate and encourage excellence.
In the month of
September, Mardis, who carries a 3.21 grade point average in nursing, caught 16
passes for 211 yards and averaged a team-best 13.2 yards per catch and 42.2
yards per game. Mardis started the month with a season best six catches for 65
yards at Indiana and then had three catches for 68 yards, including the 43-yard
TD against Quincy. He added five receptions for 59 yards, including a long of
31 yards in the MVFC opener against South Dakota State. Mardis, the first
recipient of the Mary Card Harbaugh Scholarship for Nursing through the Indiana
State University Foundation, is a native of Terre Haute and attended South Vigo
High School.
Zangmeister, who hails from Fairview Park, Ohio (Fairview High School),
holds a 3.28 grade point average in nursing.
She was the top runner for the Indiana State women’s cross country team
through the first three meets of the season with the Sycamores finishing 11th
or better each time. She opened the season with a seventh place finish at the
Bradley Open (Sept. 7), placed 11th at the Indiana Intercollegiate (Sept. 14)
in the only home meet of the season for Indiana State, and capped the month
with a sixth-place finish at the Notre Dame Invitational (Sept. 28). Her time
of 17:50 in the 5,000 meter run at Notre Dame is the sixth best time in the
Missouri Valley Conference this season and ranks as the eighth best in Indiana
State history for that distance.
Active in the community, Zangmeister has volunteered at the Bethany Soup
Kitchen in Terre Haute this fall as well as the National Guard Armory. She ran
in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and as part of her major, she has done
Community Health clinical rotations helping Terre Haute residents in their
homes with any nursing care they need.
Student-athletes
are nominated based on the following criteria:
Academic
Excellence. To be eligible for
nomination, the student-athlete must have a minimum grade point average of 3.0.
Athletic
Excellence. The student-athlete
has competed to the best of his/her ability throughout the month and
exemplified great effort and tenacity during practice and competition.
Involvement. The student-athlete must show leadership in
and out of competition, participate in community service and applicable SAAC
and life skills programming as well as show Sycamore spirit by supporting other
teams and sporting events.
State Farm
Agent Sandy Bryant, 2001 Poplar Avenue, Terre Haute, (812) 232-0758, www.sandyjbryant.com.
PREVIOUS SCHOLAR-ATHLETES OF THE WEEK
September 2012 Scholar Athletes
