CHAPEL HILL—Larden Garland of Rolesville High School and Devin Freeman of Atkins High School won top honors in the seventh North Carolina National Guard and NCHSAA Scholar-Athlete essay contest. Winners were chosen blindly by a panel of judges with criteria that included originality, content, organization and grammar.
The NCHSAA Scholar-Athlete program, powered by the North Carolina National Guard, is one of the Association’s most popular voluntary programs and recognizes excellence in the classroom as well as on the playing court or field.
As part of the program, the NCHSAA offered the essay contest, with student-athletes submitting a 400-word essay. This semester’s prompt had student-athletes write about a challenge they face as a scholar-athlete and how they work to over come this challenge. One male and one female winner were chosen from the pool of entries and received a North Carolina National Guard fitness tracker and bluetooth headphones.
Garland is a junior at Rolesville High School who competes in cross-country and soccer. In her essay, Garland described the mutlple factors that contribut to her challegen as a scholar athlete which is deciding what activities she can commit to. They way she over comes this challenge is through learning the skill of time management
Freeman is a sophomore football and lacrosse student-athlete at Atkins High Scchool. Freeman described his challenge as a scholar-athlete as is time management between school, sports, family life and other extracurriculars. His solution to this challenge was, “I had to cut down the hours of hanging out with my frineds and watching TV. I had to focus more on what was important to me which was my grades and football, which was my passion.
The scholar-athlete essay competition runner-up was Misty Thompson a junior softball and volleyball student-athlete from East Davidson High School. The challenge she faces being a scholar-athlete is pressure to be a role model both insed and outside of school.
Congratulations to the winners of the seventh North Carolina National Guard and NCHSAA Scholar-Athlete essay contest!
