Southwestern's Mueller; Centenary's Bradshaw Selected SCAC Character & Community Student-Athletes of the Week

CARL MUELLER OF SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY, a junior pitcher on the Pirates' baseball team, has been selected the SCAC Character & Community Male Student-Athlete-of-the-Week for the week ending May 25, 2014.

Mueller, who appeared in a team-high 18 games during the 2014 season and had a team-high 38 strikeouts in 37.2 innings of work, is a pre-K and Kindergarten Sunday School teacher away from the diamond. and was able to deliver a special gift to one of his students for his sixth birthday.

"Jy and Andrew's mother knew I played baseball for Southwestern so she asked me to get a signed baseball for Jy's 6th birthday," said Mueller. "I was able to not only get the baseball but also take Jy and his brother to the field to take batting practice, throw and run," says Mueller.

During the Fall of 2013, Mueller started a Bible study for the baseball team that expanded to include members of the Southwestern community (faculty and staff) who cooked meals for the people that showed up.

He is also active in his church's youth group as a youth helper, leading discussions and sometimes giving the talks. He has attended several youth retreats, allowing him to develop important bonds as a mentor to several Georgetown youth. During the summers, Mueller spends his time as a counselor at Laity Lodge Youth Camp (LLYC), a non-denominational Christian camp funded by H.E.B. in Leakey, TX. He has served as a counselor there the last three years and looks forward to another summer building relationships with campers and trying to pour into their lives.

SARAH BRADSHAW OF CENTENARY COLLEGE, a senior from Longview, Texas, has been selected the SCAC Character & Community Female Student-Athlete-of-the-Week for the week ending May 25, 2014.

Bradshaw, who served as President of the Centenary College Student-Athlete Advisory Committee this past year, helped to organize many activities throughout the 2013-14 academic year, including the Centenary College Service Week, which is sponsored by the Centenary SAAC.

This week-long event gave the student-athletes to interact and assist with various organizations in the Shreveport community.

The 17 intercollegiate programs divided into small groups to lend a helping hand at Common Ground, the Northwest Louisiana Food Bank and Querbes SPAR Recreation Center with service projects that consisted of dinner preparation, helping in the community garden, cleanup projects, tutoring and various other activities.

“This is a new approach to service that we have implemented this year,” said Bradshaw. “Community service is very important to us and this is a great way to get everyone involved. We as student-athletes believe that community service is important to grow and expand the community and we are all excited to help in any way we can.”

“With smaller groups, everyone can help and we can help many different organizations with service projects instead of finding somewhere large enough for all of us to go together,” continued Bradshaw. “We paired teams up by their brother and sister teams and then found places that needed some type of service work done and sent student athletes there.”

The student-athletes totaled 200-plus hours of community service during the week.

In addition to her role as SAAC President, Bradshaw played a huge role in the mentoring and training of Resident Assistants. She coordinated the “Sunshine Committee”, which helped create a culture of caring among the Residence Life staff by leading a committee that celebrated birthdays as well as spreading “sunshine” to staff for encouragement. The group also supported Centenary students and student-athletes by giving them encouragement and promoting their activities across campus.

Bradshaw also assisted with the Salvation Army Toy Drive, Polar Plunge, a canned food drive, Oxfam America and single-handedly organized a Special Olympics Basketball game.

She also assisted with the campus MLK Service Day and worked with Shreveport Green.