Matt Streb
The National Football Foundation (NFF) today announced the names of the 15 faculty athletics representatives who will be honored as part of the 2012 NFF Faculty Salute Initiative, including Matt Streb of Northern Illinois University.
The award, sponsored by Fidelity Investments, honors the significant contributions of faculty athletics representatives across the nation.
“For more than 150 years, faculty athletics representatives have played a critical role in the overall educational experience of our country’s student-athletes,” said NFF President & CEO Steve Hatchell. “We are proud to join with Fidelity to highlight their contributions and pivotal support in ensuring that our nation’s student-athletes succeed on and off the field.”
For 2012, the NFF will recognize the faculty athletics representatives from each of the 15 schools with a 2012 NFF National Scholar-Athlete. The Northern Illinois University player on that list is defensive tackle Nabal Jefferson, who has a 3.78 GPA in NIU’s highly regarded accountancy program, which is currently ranked 26th in the nation by U.S. News and World Report.
Streb, who is chair of NIU’s Department of Political Science, began serving as the university’s faculty athletics representative this year.
“This really is Nabal’s honor. He is a tremendous student athlete and a credit to the institution. Credit should also go to Associate Athletics Director for Communications Donna Turner and her staff for compiling Nabal’s nomination packet, which led to these honors,” Streb said. “I think Nabal’s honor is a tremendous example of how members of our football team excel not only on the field, but also in the classroom.”
Others receiving the award (with the names of the scholar-athletes in parentheses) are:
- Baylor University, Mike Rogers (Nick Florence, QB, 3.79 GPA)
- Duke University, Martha Putallaz (Sean Renfree, QB, 3.40 GPA)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hank Smith (Ethan Peterson, OL, 3.83 GPA)
- Northwestern University, Robert Gundlach (Patrick Ward, OT, 3.94 GPA)
- Robert Morris University, Scott Branvold (Nolan Nearhoof, DE, 3.73 GPA)
- Saint Xavier University (Ill.), Barbara Becker (Shane Zackery, WR, 3.71 GPA)
- Syracuse University, Mike Wasylenko (Ryan Nassib, QB, 3.57 GPA)
- Texas Tech University, Brian Shannon (Cody Davis, S, 3.70 GPA)
- University of Alabama, Kevin Whitaker (Barrett Jones, C, 4.00 GPA)
- University of Mount Union (Ohio), Scott Mason (Nick Driskill, S, 3.77 GPA)
- University of Nebraska, Josephine Potuto (Rex Burkhead, RB, 3.43 GPA)
- University of Notre Dame, Patricia Bellia (Manti Te’o, LB, 3.32 GPA)
- University of Southern California, Clare Pastore (Matt Barkley, QB, 3.21 GPA)
