San José State athletics had a school-record 77 student-athletes named to the Academic All-Mountain West team.
Student-athletes become Academic All-Mountain West honors if they compete in 50% or more of their teams’ contests and achieve a cumulative 3.00 grade-point average or higher, according to a San José State athletics news release.
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya said that the Spartans have led the Mountain West in academic recognition over the past several semesters.
“All credit to the student-athletes, our support staff, the coaches, being 77 student-athletes, that kind of recognition is tremendous,” Konya said. “I think it’s a historic high for the department.”
Konya said SJSU has had 70% off their student-athletes achieve a 3.00 GPA or higher and that athletes who utilize the tools available to them to take leadership responsibilities in the college community while competing for the school have aided in them having a very well-rounded experience.
“That’s what I’m proud of, I want to make sure that our student athletes do have the infrastructure to be successful in all these different platforms,” Konya said. “Whether they’re going to go pro in athletics or pro in life, we want to make sure that they have that foundation that whatever they want to do.”
A tool that student-athletes have access to through the university is the Beyond Sparta program.
Konya said that the Beyond Sparta program is one of the best life skills programs in the country.
“Beyond Sparta has been in our DNA for probably about a 10-year period,” Konya said. ”So student athletes basically use that to do the volunteerism, the community service, the career workshops, resume internships, connections, workshops, I know that they’ve in the past have brought in conferences on like women leadership and other things to try and inspire the current crop of student-athletes in various topics.”
SJSU was named the Community Service National Program of the Year by the Fiesta Bowl in 2024, according to The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics.
“You know, to win an award like that, that was pretty, pretty outstanding,” Konya said. “It really goes on the heels of a lot of the work that our student-athletes do with the Beyond Sparta program.”
Jalen Apalit-Williams, a fall graduate with a communication studies degree and Spartan footballer, was the only Spartan who received All-Academic Mountain West honors for the fourth time, according to the newsletter.
Apalit-Williams said he utilized the Beyond Sparta program and the opportunity for students in the Silicon Valley to set himself up for success after his football career had ended.
“Attacking all of these opportunities out here, networking with all these people, Beyond Sparta really helped me a lot in that world,” Apalit-Williams said.
Apalit-Williams said he took two summer internships with Adobe, which helped him land a full-time job with them starting this May.
He said balancing academics and athletics was based around understanding what his “why” is, and that in high school he suffered two torn ACL’s, missed his senior year and grey-shirted his first year at SJSU to preserve his eligibility.
“Why am I doing this to myself, like what is my reasoning?” Apalit-Williams said. “Thank God that it ended up working out going to San José State.”
He said that as a student-athlete pursuing a degree in communication studies and eventually a master’s in interdisciplinary studies, it was important for him to remember that he was in school not only to compete, but to get an education.
“At some point your sport is going to end, it’s going to strike zero and you will be a retired athlete, but the one thing you can always say you have is that education and that education you can take with you to wherever you go,” Apalit-Williams said.
Sky Kerstein, SJSU associate athletic director for communication and broadcasting, said that this semester was really good for SJSU.
“This is big, this is what being a student-athlete is all about,” Kerstein said.
SJSU boasted multiple banners last semester located at the entrance of the school and by the football field, marking the school as the fourth-best public university in the nation, according to a Wall Street Journal ranking.
“We want people to know that San José State’s an excellent place to go to school,” Kerstein said. “It’s one of the best schools in the country and that’s a huge part of what we do here and with our Beyond Sparta program.”
