University of Connecticut Athletics
Student-Athletes Honored on 3.0 Night
1/30/2020 1:52:00 PM | Student-Athlete Success Program
During the men's basketball game against Temple on Wednesday night at Gampel Pavilion, student-athletes were honored not for their athletic achievements, but for their achievements in the classroom on the annual "3.0 Night."
In all, 449 student-athletes were honored for achieving a GPA of 3.0 or above for the Spring 2019 and Fall 2019 semesters, which is 64% of the student-athlete population on campus. This includes 53 students who earned a perfect 4.0 GPA in one of those two semesters.
"I always tell the students I'm in awe of how they are so committed to school and to their sport," Ellen Tripp, the director of the Student-Athlete Success Program, said. "They're great members of the university community, and I think it's incredible. I think what they do every day is unselfish, and they're dedicated and they're hardworking."
Tripp said that the culture around UConn and the dedication of the coaches and administrators enables the school to feature so many athletes with high grades.
"[UConn is] a top-25 public institution," Tripp said. "We attract very serious, very high-achieving students, and I think it shows our student-athletes are part of that. The reason why so many of our student-athletes came to UConn out of high school was a combination of they could continue to be successful athletically, but they also could leave here with an incredible degree that would catapult them into having a variety of great opportunities."
Working with the student-athletes on a day-to-day basis, Tripp sees how difficult their schedules are. They have mandatory practices, workouts, injury treatments and of course, traveling for away games, which makes their class demands even more strenuous. As a result, Tripp said she thinks that achieving a 3.0 may be even more special than usual to a student-athlete.
"For a student who has so many demands on their time, regardless of what those are, to achieve over a 3.0 … I think that's pretty amazing," Tripp said. "I think it just speaks to the hard work that they have and the dedication to their studies and the work ethic. I think that's all really important."
The student-athletes at UConn work so hard on a day-to-day basis to be great on the field, court and ice, but also in the classroom, and they deserve recognition for that as well. Congratulations to everyone who was honored on Wednesday night.
