The champions: Faith Lutheran wins first Greenspun Cup for academic and athletic excellence

By Ray Brewer (contact)

Wednesday, June 8, 2016 | 2 a.m.

It was the most important week of the season for the Faith Lutheran High baseball team. The Crusaders expected to challenge for a state championship and were in the middle of the regional playoffs.

For senior catcher Jake Koentopp, the week had another challenge: A physics exam. Not only was Koentopp a top athlete, he was also one of the class of 2016’s top students.

Koentopp did the unthinkable for some. He asked coaches to miss practice to spend extra time studying. He was met with no resistance.

“Some schools will say they put academics ahead of athletics, but that might not always be the case” Koentopp said. “Here (at Faith Lutheran), it really is. There is a balance. Academics truly are first.”

Judging by the grade point average of its student-athletes, Koentopp is correct — academics are a priority at Faith Lutheran. In the 2015-16 school year, the Crusaders won four Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association Academic State championships out of 22 sports. On the field, they won five championships.

Those results gave them a convincing win in the inaugural Greenspun Cup competition, which ranked Southern Nevada high schools based on academic and athletic performance of every sport. Faith Lutheran finished with 270 points, comfortably ahead of second-place Palo Verde with 251 points and Coronado in third at 229. It’s even more impressive considering our standings included points from boys and girls bowling, which Faith Lutheran doesn’t field a team in.

Here’s how we tallied the points:

For athletics, 10 points were awarded for a state championship. It’s eight points for two or more playoff wins and five points for making the postseason. For sports with meets as the state tournament, such as cross country, the state team champion still receives 10 points. It’s nine points for second place, eight for third and so forth.

For academics, we’ve partnered with the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association to use the team grade-point averages it collects for the team-by-team Academic State Championship. If a team wins the Academic State title, it’s worth 10 points — equal to winning an athletic title. For a GPA of 3.5 or better, it’s eight points in the standings. It’s five points for 3.0 or better, and three points for 2.5 or better.

Some schools didn’t turn in team GPAs to the NIAA and weren’t included in our standings. The NIAA requested that we don’t publish GPAs without consent of each school.

In the spring season alone, Faith Lutheran won academic state championships in baseball, boys track and softball. In softball, the GPA was 3.73. In the fall, the girls cross country team had a 3.94 grade point average.

“We are really proud we won this. We are stoked,” Principal Scott Fogo said. “The culture here has always been we are going to do God things best, then academics. With everything else, we strive for excellence.”

And lately, that excellence has been in athletics, especially in female sports. The Crusaders this school year won their third straight girls volleyball championship, and also captured the girls basketball, girls cross country and softball titles.

In the past two graduating classes, Faith Lutheran has sent 44 student-athletes into college athletics. Koentopp would have been the school’s valedictorian, but he finished second in his graduating class because all athletes at Faith Lutheran are required to take weight training and those classes aren’t weighted to enhance a GPA. Of the 915 high school students at Faith Lutheran, which also has a middle school, 600 play at least one sport.

They’ve been a powerhouse in most Division I-A sports the past four seasons, winning so many regional and state championships that the walls of Faith Lutheran’s new gym are lined with banners from top to bottom. Next school year there will be a new challenge: Faith Lutheran was promoted to the large-school classification and will have to beat large-enrollment schools such as Centennial or Arbor View.

“It’s going to be a huge change, but the coaches and kids are ready,” said Bret Walter, the Crusaders’ longtime basketball coach and athletic director. “The uncertainty is motivating people to have a sense of urgency to work hard and to be prepared.”

The transition is nothing new for Walter, who just finished his 19th year. When he started at the school in the 1990s, it competed in the old 1A classification for schools with an enrollment of less than 100. The school has always had a reputation for high-quality academics and for its religious-based education.

Slowly but surely, they are also earning their stripes in athletics. Previously, Faith Lutheran would lose top athletics from its middle school teams to Bishop Gorman or public schools for high school. Now, a majority of athletes are staying, Walter said.

Even though the wins are more frequent, the culture appears to be the same.

“This is an academic institution first and foremost,” Fogo said. “The athletes aren’t favored in the classroom.”

The Greenspun Cup was one of the top honors of the first Las Vegas Sun Standout Awards. The show was during the final week of the spring sports season, meaning we couldn’t present the Cup until this week.

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21