Four from men's tennis garner NAIA Scholar-Athlete status

By Jacob Knabel on May. 15, 2023 in Men's Tennis

2023 NAIA Men’s Tennis Scholar-Athletes

SEWARD, Neb. – A quartet of Bulldogs from Concordia University Men’s Tennis landed on the list of 2023 Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athletes released on Monday (May 15) by the NAIA. Head Coach Cam Long’s squad was represented on the honor roll by Luke Johnson, Juan Rabellino, Manuel Rodriguez and Shawn Springer. Johnson and Rabellino are both repeat NAIA Scholar-Athlete award winners.

The 2022-23 list of men’s tennis honorees features 245 total student-athletes. In order to be nominated by an institution’s head coach or sports information director, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, must appear on the eligibility certificate for the sport and have attended one full year at said institution.

In addition to earning Scholar-Athlete status, Rabellino and Rodriguez were also recently named to the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team. Academic majors for the four Scholar-Athletes are Biology for Johnson, Computer Science for Rabellino, Mathematics and Physics for Rodriguez and Exercise Science for Springer. The Bulldogs excelled in the classroom while finishing the 2023 season as a GPAC semifinalist.

Concordia University ranks as the NAIA’s all-time leader in number of Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes with 2,121 entering the 2022-23 academic year. The school record for number of Scholar-Athletes in one academic year is 226 achieved in 2019-20. Concordia has been a regular national leader for both Scholar-Athletes and Scholar-Teams.

2023 Men’s Tennis NAIA Scholar-Athletes

·        Luke Johnson (Kansas City, Kan.)

·        Juan Rabellino (La Barra, Uruguay)

·        Manuel Rodriguez (Jerez de la Frontera, Spain)

·        Shawn Springer (Aurora, Colo.)