University Scholarships Awarded To Eighteen Monarch Football Players

Sophomores on the Valley's football roster will play for four-year universities this fall.

Published: Saturday, May 19, 2012

Updated: Saturday, May 19, 2012 01:05

Eighteen sophomores on the Valley College football team received scholarships to four-year universities for the fall semester.

“I can’t tell you how rewarding it is for me to see a young man get a scholarship,” said football coach Jim Fenwick. “ … To have their books, room, board and tuition paid for, it makes their journey through school so much easier.”

According to Valley’s Athletic Director Diedra Stark, of all the athletes that participate in athletics, about 20 to 30 of them receive scholarships every year. Student-athletes who play with the intent to transfer to a university must put in the same amount of effort in the classroom as they do on the field.

According to Stark, all students are obligated to maintain a minimum GPA of 2.5 while completing at least 24 units each year in order to stay eligible.

Those working to get noticed by Division 1 or Division 2 schools have two years to compete at the community college level. Within those two years of competition all student-athletes must complete 60 transferable units to be eligible to transfer.

“There is probably an academic message every day we meet with them,” said Fenwick. “Our primary goal here is to help our student-athletes move on to a four-year program.”

Football players at Valley are encouraged to take more than 12 units to stay on track for the four-year colleges. According to Fenwick, the first thing that four-year universities ask for when recruiting someone is an unofficial transcript.

Along with having to put in a large amount of work in the classroom, athletes spend about four hours a day practicing and conditioning to stay on top of their game. Many players are forced to forfeit having a job because of the amount of commitment and time it takes to be a student-athlete.

“When you are a full-time student, the amount of work we have to do in order to get an AA degree to transfer to a Division 1 school is difficult,” said Kalan Booker, a defensive back for the Monarchs. “I think that school and football [and] having a job is a little harsh.”

Booker is one of the 18 sophomores who received a scholarship this year. He will attend Missouri Western State University this fall. He is a product of Taft High School in Woodland Hills and was selected for the Pacific Division First Team while playing for Valley.

“We do our best effort to get kids to take the right classes and pass them with Cs or better,” said Fenwick. “We help them do what they need to do in the classroom to prepare them and get them on video so they can get noticed and continue playing.”