Central’s Freischlag wins conference Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award
Central College
PELLA—Graduated Central College men’s tennis player Kyle Freischlag (Downers Grove, Ill./South) has been awarded as the 2013-14 Duane Schroeder Iowa Conference Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award.
The conference honor recognizes a student-athlete who has demonstrated high levels of accomplishment and achievement in athletics and academics while also serving the community. To be eligible for consideration, student-athletes must have graduated or exhausted their athletic eligibility during the year the award is given, achieve a 3.50 or better cumulative grade point average (4.0 scale) and show evidence of service and leadership. Each league institution may nominate a male and female candidate and a group of 18 conference faculty athletic representatives determine the two award winners.
Freischlag, now enrolled at the Duke University School of Medicine, graduated from Central in May with a 3.86 grade point average while majoring in history and biology with a Spanish minor.
He earned membership into three academic honor societies during his undergraduate years, Beta Beta Beta (biology), Phi Alpha Theta (history) and Alpha Zeta Mu (based on grade point average). In his senior year, he was student representative to the Central board of trustees and served as chief sustainability officer in the student government. Freischlag, a three-time academic all-conference honoree, was a two-time Intercollegiate Tennis Association Scholar-Athlete (2012, 2013).
In summer, 2013, Freischlag was a medical research intern at the Institute of Bionanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. His work from the summer was published in a pair of abstracts. He received the Dr. Herman Vander Muelen Award, given to an outstanding Central pre-health student accepted into medical school.
Freischlag spent over 300 hours during his senior year volunteering with the Iowa College AmeriCorps Program. He also volunteered his time as a hospice caregiver at the Comfort House in Pella and as a youth tennis coach in the area. Last spring, he also ventured with his senior seminar class to Peru on a service-learning trip.
Freischlag earned four letters and served as a team captain for two years during his Central career. He became the No. 1 singles and doubles players his junior season before suffering a torn ACL. He had surgery in the summer and, remarkably, returned on a limited basis less than 10 months later, playing No. 3 doubles during the outdoor season as a senior.
As a sophomore in 2011, he advanced to the Round of 16 in Flight A singles at the conference individual tournament. In 2012, Freischlag and partner West Adelman (junior, Geneva, Ill.) made it to the quarterfinals of Flight A Doubles at the Iowa Conference tournament. Freischlag finished his career in a Dutch uniform with a 67-91 record, including going 42-43 in doubles play.
Freischlag becomes the fifth Central student-athlete to win the male or female award in its 15-year history. Raegan Schultz Wagner (volleyball, track and field) was honored for 2003-04. Adam Duerfeldt (baseball) and Katie Pederson Whipple (volleyball, track and field) were recognized for 2005-06 and Jill (Ziskovsy) Halcomb (track and field) was cited for 2010-11.
