Simon Holzapfel, a senior majoring in sports science and sport management, at Tusculum College, has been selected as the state winner of the James E. Ward Outstanding Major Award by the Tennessee Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (TAHPERD).
The award was announced at the TAHPERD state convention on November 2. Recipients of TAHPERD awards at colleges and universities in the state are considered for the award. As the statewide recipient, Holzapfel will represent Tennessee for the national American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (AAHPERD) award. Holzapfel is the first Tusculum student to receive the statewide TAHPERD award.
Among the areas considered for the award include a student’s academic standing, leadership in campus life, service to the college and to the community and other areas of achievement. Student nominations also had to include recommendations from the president of the college’s Physical Education and Sports Majors Club, the student’s faculty advisor and a faculty member.
Holzapfel, a native of Nuremberg, Germany, has maintained a 4.0 grade point average in his studies since entering Tusculum, and thus, appeared on both the President’s and Charles Oliver Gray Scholars college honor lists each year.
In addition to the college’s TAHPERD award, last spring Holzapfel received the Alpha Chi Academic Excellence Award, presented to the highest academically ranked junior.
A scholar-athlete, Holzapfel has twice been the recipient of the college’s Duffield Award, which is presented to the upperclassman student-athlete with the highest grade point average. He was also the recipient of the Freshman Student-Athlete of the Year academic award.
This past weekend, he was named the 2010 South Atlantic Conference (SAC) Cross Country Scholar Athlete of the Year, the second time in his career to earn this honor. He has been named to the SAC Commissioner’s Honor Roll each semester he has been a student at Tusculum as well as to the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll. He earned Academic All-American honors in 2008 and 2009.
Holzapfel is one of the most decorated cross country runners in Tusculum’s history. He owns the top 11 8,000-meter times in school history and 14 of the best 20. He has captured 16 career individual titles, including six in a row this year. He is the 2010 SAC Runner of the Year, an honor he also received last year.
A leader on campus, Holzapfel is a senior resident assistant and has such responsibilities as supervising seven resident assistants, coordinating and organizing student activities, enforcing college policy, assisting with registration of new students and student mentoring and mediating.
Holzapfel is the vice president of the Pioneer Student-Athlete Advisory Council and the Physical Education and Sports Majors Club. He is a member of the Pioneer Green Team, serves as a peer tutor and is founder and president of the Track and Field Club.
While at Tusculum, Holzapfel has also served as a senator in the Student Government Association and been a member of the President’s Society and the John Witherspoon Society.
He has volunteered in annual campus clean-ups, in set building for the Theatre-at-Tusculum program, in efforts to raise funds for the Pioneer Club that supports student athlete scholarships and the athletic program and as a volunteer for the recent Inauguration of Tusculum’s 27th president, Dr. Nancy B. Moody.
In the community, Holzapfel has helped in an effort to clean Harmony Cemetery, volunteered at the Greene County Field Day, assisted in administering fitness tests for students at Chuckey-Doak Middle School and has volunteered for fundraisers at DeBusk and Doak elementary schools and at a local nursing home.
During the March 2010 national AAHPERD convention, Holzapfel was co-presenter of two sessions, a Yoga Wake-up session and a Breathing-Relaxation Session. In 2009, he designed an undergraduate research study, “The Effect of Cognitive-Specific Imagery on Tennis Serve Accuracy.”
In 2007, Holzapfel was given a free membership to the German Physics Association due to outstanding achievements in physics. He has received a certificate from the Institute of German Economics for initiating and organizing a youth enterprise and been awarded a certificate from the Republic of France for his proficiency in French.