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Just one year after five new sports were
added to the Florida Tech athletics program,
some of the top student-athletes in Florida
are choosing to don the Panther crimson
and gray. Two premier student-
athletes who have triumphed in the classroom
and on the field are Megan Kramer and Charise
Parker. Kramer and Parker possess perfect
4.0 grade point averages and benefited
from the expansion of programs and scholarship
dollars instituted during the 2003–2004
academic year.
 That year, President Anthony
Catanese decided to add five new sports,
and increase scholarship amounts and
numbers to support the nine other athletic
programs
at
Florida Tech. Women’s soccer and women’s cross country, a new program
and an existing program, have produced two of Florida Tech’s top student-athletes
in Kramer and Parker. In addition to earning dean’s list honors in both
the fall and spring semesters, Kramer and Parker also received Sunshine State
Conference (SSC) academic honors by being named to the Commissioner’s
Honor Roll.
Kramer, a junior on the women’s soccer team, transferred from
Virginia Tech with a 4.0 GPA and continued this academic excellence at Florida
Tech. A
local student-athlete from Satellite Beach, Kramer was delighted to hear that
Florida Tech was adding a women’s soccer program. She jumped at the chance
to attend Florida Tech on athletic and academic scholarships and to study mechanical
engineering.
Panther women’s soccer coach Tammy Mazza had been familiar with Kramer
as a high school player and was thrilled at her decision to study closer
to home.
“Florida Tech has an excellent engineering
program and Coach Mazza offered me a great
opportunity to pursue my education while
helping start a new soccer program,” said
Kramer.
 In their inaugural season, Kramer and
her teammates finished fifth in the highly
competitive nine-team Sunshine
State Conference. Kramer’s first
season at her hometown university was
indeed a success, as she was one of two
Panthers
who earned All-SSC Honorable Mention.
Like Kramer, Parker transferred
to Florida Tech with a perfect 4.0
GPA and kept her unblemished academic record
intact throughout her first
year at
Florida Tech.
One of the top runners on the women’s cross country team, Kramer
is originally from Chicago, Ill. She now calls Edgewater, Fla.—where
her fiancée
Dylan resides—her home. At Florida Tech, Kramer is majoring in
business with a concentration in environmental studies.
Thanks to Parker’s
contributions, the Panther women’s squad raced
to a third-place finish in the SSC for the first time since the 1980s.
Parker finished 10th overall in the SSC Championships and was one of
two Panther runners
to earn a spot on the All-SSC second team. She also achieved a personal
goal for the season breaking the 20-minute barrier in a five-kilometer
race.
“My goal at Florida Tech is to make
the NCAA National Championships and graduate
with a perfect 4.0,” stated Parker. Like Kramer, Parker studies
every weekend when she is not practicing or competing, finding
little or no time for social
activities.
With the start of a new academic year,
many new—and
returning—Florida
Tech student-athletes will have a chance to write their own success
stories, much like Megan Kramer and Charise Parker.
Christa Parulis-Kaye |
