NORTHRIDGE – CSUN Athletics celebrated the 36th Annual Varsity N Athletics Honor Roll ceremony Tuesday evening at The Soraya as 87 Matador student-athletes were honored for earning a 3.2 grade point average or higher.

Former Matador volleyball player Bill Courtland emceed the event, which led off with an introduction from CSUN Associate Vice President of Student Success, Dr. Elizabeth Adams.

“Congratulations to each and every one of you for your academic and athletic achievements,” said Dr. Adams. “I realize how easy it is to get distracted by the pieces of life that are more, shall we call them negatively resonant. But tonight is not that night. Tonight is the night to celebrate the positive, to acknowledge the extraordinary and to recognize the ways in which the men and women in this room embody the student-athlete ideal and bring honor and pride to all of us here at California State University, Northridge.”

After new inductees signed the Varsity N scroll and all honorees posed for photos on stage with their coach, Senior Associate Athletic Director for Academic Services Teiana Jones and CSUN Faculty Athletics Representative Dr. Ed Jackiewicz, individual awards were presented.

For the first time in Varsity N history, five student-athletes earned the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year after achieving a perfect 4.0 grade point average. Shannon Hovanesian and Vivian Talmage from water polo, Scout Shutter from tennis, Jenna Koziol from soccer and Alice Duan from golf each earned the award while senior baseball player Nolan Bumstead received the same honor for the men, also earning a perfect 4.0 GPA.

The men’s volleyball team was then honored as the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Men’s Team of the Year for the second consecutive year and the women’s soccer team received the honor for the women with a 3.38 GPA.

Jackiewicz then announced Shutter as the recipient of the Dick Enberg Post-Graduate Scholarship for Academic Excellence, and will receive $5,000 to put towards her graduate studies. Shutter plans to put the scholarship towards pursuing a career in medicine with the ultimate goal of becoming a medical doctor after graduating from CSUN this spring.

The late Dick Enberg is a member of the Matador Athletics Hall of Fame and the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame who had an accomplished broadcasting career. He was a baseball coach and Assistant Professor at CSUN and recently visited campus for a reunion of the 1965 championship baseball team.

The evening concluded with a speech by Nolan Bumstead, who homered in CSUN’s 10-4 victory at Pepperdine just hours before the event. Bumstead highlighted three of the more important things he’s learned as a student-athlete at CSUN.

“I realize this is a congratulatory ceremony, but instead of focusing on the accomplishments I want to give thanks to the people in this room who help give all of us the opportunity to get to this point,” said Bumstead. “First and foremost I’ve learned the value in seeking out relationships that push, evolve and challenge how I think and go about my life. The second important lesson that being a student-athlete has taught me is how to handle failure. The third point I want to hit on tonight might be the most important thing I’ve learned at CSUN, self discipline.”

Bumstead mentioned his relationships with classmates outside of his athletics circle before singling out teammate Riley Conlan for his perseverence and handling adversity in his collegiate career. He closed by talking about CSUN baseball’s opportunity to attend a seminar called Success Live in the fall. Bumstead highlighted the speech by ex-Marine John Gretton “Jocko” Willink who coined the phrase discipline equals freedom.

The evening concluded with a group photo of the 87 honorees on The Soraya’s grand staircase.