Student athlete: a term that can be used to categorize many teenagers in the Westside student body. Student athlete. Student.

The emphasis of the student is one many coaches around the school have preached to their players over the years. You go to school first of all to get an education; sports come after.

This philosophy is one followed by varsity football coach Brett Froendt as he recently wrapped up his annual GPA contest for the football players. The contest itself is quite simple: throughout the course of the season, each grade level competes to have the highest average GPA by the final weeks. The winners of the contest receive steaks at team dinner, the second and third place teams receive hamburgers, and the losing team is stuck with hotdogs along with the pleasure of serving the other players their food.

“It’s a way to reward and to try to incentivize our team to study and get good grades,” Froendt said. “So we reward the classes that do well and the ones that don’t, eat sparsely.”

According to Froendt, the GPAs of the grades have continued to go up every year despite a slight dip this season. This year the seniors lost the contest with an average GPA of 2.6 and were forced to become workers for the other football players.

“[Serving the sophomores] is demoralizing,” senior tight end Ryan Golden said.

On the other hand, the sophomores won the contest with an average GPA of 2.961, beating out the juniors for the steak by a mere .001.

“[Winning] felt pretty good,” sophomore kicker Jack Finnochiaro said. “It feels good taking food from them.”

With the contest evoking joy from players all around, especially those who ate the steaks, Froendt will continue the contest in the future and help his team recognize the importance of “student” in student athlete.