There was a young man. He was the most competitive man I’ve ever encountered in my life. His specialty was the sport of football. He was recruited by a host of schools from Wisconsin and Minnesota and in his senior year of high school, when it came time to choose a school to pad up for, he chose a Div. II school in the land of 10,000 lakes that didn’t even recruit him.

After red-shirting a year, medical red-shirting a year and sitting on the bench for a year, he finally got his opportunity to play, and oh boy, did he. He made his way into the starting lineup and became the best defensive back on the team, earning an athletic scholarship that paid him a whopping $500 a semester. Unfortunately, after one healthy year, the young man tore his ACL for the second time, ending his football career.

That young man was my brother Bill. My family and I watched him struggle through seven knee surgeries, all the while wondering if he’d ever get his opportunity to play.

So why am I telling you this? Because I’ve always wondered what if. What if he would have gone to UW-Eau Claire or UW-Stevens Point? Would he have had to go through three years of abusing his body before getting the opportunity to play?

The answer is a resounding no, but in doing so Bill not only wouldn’t have had the opportunity for a scholarship, he also would have had a different set of hurdles to conquer.

Div. III schools, like Eau Claire, not only have to compete for athletes with the several Div. II Minnesota schools that offer scholarships, but also have to compete with the stiffening academic standards that have been rising in the UW system.

This poses a problem for recruiting athletes. Eau Claire is second to only UW-La Crosse in academic requirements in the WIAC. Running through the list of academic requirements at other schools in the conference, there appears to be some sizable gaps between the top schools like La Crosse and Eau Claire and the bottom schools such as UW-Stout and UW-Superior.

So what does this mean for coaches and athletes at La Crosse and Eau Claire? To put it simply, it means their jobs are not easy and they’re pretty damn smart.

The average ACT score of current freshmen hovers around 25, said Kris Anderson, Director of Admissions, which is three points over Eau Claire’s required 22. The Registrar’s Office reported the average GPA of 525 Eau Claire student athletes last year was 3.03.

Eau Claire coaches recruit anywhere between 10 and 500 high school athletes from around the area in any given year, the number depending on the sport. And as any person with common sense would know, many of the athletes don’t meet the academic requirements.

So coaches are forced to not only be picky about an athlete’s level of talent; they must also be picky about what kind of talent they recruit.

“We’ve got to be kind of selective with the type of individual we bring here to Eau Claire,” men’s basketball coach Terry Gibbons said. “It’s a tough situation, but kids have to be smart to get into Eau Claire.”

The fact is many high school standouts are unable to get accepted to Eau Claire, which causes some backlash. Once an athlete is turned down by Eau Claire, the most likely thing he or she will do is look for another school in the area that offers less strict academic standards.

Just like that, an athlete who wanted to compete for Eau Claire competes against the Blugolds, but coaches and faculty have somehow found a way to keep bringing in top-notch student athletes.

“(In recruiting), the first thing we have to do is make sure we’re working within the parameters of the academic requirements,” Athletic Director Scott Kilgallon said. “Coaches here spend an incredible amount of time recruiting. I believe that the one-on-one contact many of the coaches provide for recruits goes a long way in getting incoming freshmen to commit.”

Kilgallon is right, junior wrestler and football player Derek Sikora said.

“I’m very happy with my decision to come to Eau Claire,” Sikora said. “I toured other schools and we met as a group but here at Eau Claire everything was very individual and that was a big reason why I decided to come here.”

Through recruiting services, extensive one-on-one contact with athletes, networking and especially affordability and academic excellence, coaches at Eau Claire have been able to keep their programs at a high level of competition.

“I really emphasize the academic program,” women’s softball coach Leslie Huntington said. “All athletes have the potential of getting hurt and here at Eau Claire, the academic program we have is more than just a back up.”

According to the Registrar’s Office, 441 student athletes have graduated from Eau Claire in the last three years, which averages 147 each year.

Looking at the average number of incoming freshman student athletes (144) and the number of student athletes that have graduated in the last three years, one can draw the conclusion that nearly every athlete here at Eau Claire graduates.

The program has claimed five national championships and 83 WIAC Conference Championships in the last 12 years, according to the university’s Web site. These numbers make the accomplishments of the athletic program at Eau Claire unprecedentedly obvious.

“Some students want to take a chance on going to a bigger school and not getting a chance to compete for a couple of years,” Huntington said. “Here at Eau Claire, athletes not only get an opportunity to compete, they get the opportunity to compete for a conference or national championship.”

Brad Knickerbocker is a senior print journalism major and a sports editor of The Spectator.