Weyer’s collegiate award combines sports, character and Christianity

Tera Weyer, a 2012 Staples Motley High School graduate participated in college golf and had a stellar career, but she took the  mindset that there is more to sports than competition.

At North Central University (NCU), the college she attended in Minneapolis, “everything is done for glorifying God in all we do, including sports,” said Weyer. “Sharing faith is far more important than golf,” she said.

For her ability to make sports about people rather than competition, Weyer received a national award, the Game Plan 4 LIFE Female Student-Athlete Character Award from the National Christian College Athletic Association at their annual convention June 1-3 in Louisville, Ky. One female and one male athlete are honored with the award each year.

Even though she was a student aide to the NCU athletic department, Weyer didn’t know about the award until she was informed that she had won it. Then she found out about the long process that had been going on behind her back. Letters of recommendation were written by many people, including her coach, athletic director, college vice president and an opposing coach from Northwestern University in St. Paul. “I know all the opposing coaches, and they could have written the letter, but his was especially good,” said Weyer.

Weyer was not able to read those letters until the convention in Louisville, so hearing parts of them being read was a distinction for her college career.

“It was such an honor, I didn’t think I did a whole, bunch” of extra things to earn the award, said Weyer.

Quotes from the letters include:

“Tera exemplifies character and leadership in whatever she puts her hand to,” noted Michael Nosser, Vice President of Student Development. “She is a wonderful young woman who has been a blessing to our institution.”

Greg Johnson, NCU Director of Athletics, stated, “Tera exhibits love to all people, but her love towards what’s most important - winning others for Christ - is clearly of highest priority.”

Weyer finished her intercultural studies course work and graduated as class valedictorian with a 4.0 GPA. She was captain of the women’s golf team, co-director of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, and volunteered at a children’s reading center.

Looking back, Weyer said it was a good decision to take part in college athletics.

“I wasn’t planning on being an athlete,” she said when she first started college. She didn’t even know NCU had a women’s golf team until she knew it would be her college choice.

Once she found out there was a team, she decided to give it a try since she loves to play golf and it was a chance to “play on the best courses, meet cool people and improve on your sport,” she said.

The main college golf season is in the fall. Weyer said it is a short season, from around Aug. 20 to Oct. 10. That schedule worked well with her academics because the course load gets heavier in the second part of the term.

It also gave her the chance to travel to the Middle East for the spring semester last year, to study in Egypt and Turkey. See the Sept. 15, 2015 Staples World for a story on that trip.

Weyer had an excellent golf career at NCU, winning five tournaments and scoring the lowest career average round per 18 holes in program history. She also has the lowest individual round of 84. This fall she placed second in the conference tournament in Alexandria.

“It worked out well,” said Weyer.

Weyer is planning to travel back to the Middle East, this time to Oman, a country on the Arabian Peninsula, for a two year program. She will join some of the people who she met in Egypt and will study at Arabic Institute language school.

She believes her college experience, including golf, will help her with her next steps in life, even in a region where women’s sports are forbidden. “It’s more than just the sport, you learn to fight when things are going bad and turn it into something good,” she said. “I learned to make friends and have conversations with people I don’t know. In golf you have six hours out there on the course to get to know them.” Weyer said she still has contact with some of the people she met through golf.

To collect her NCCAA Student-Athlete Character Award, Weyer drove to Louisville with her mother Joy, uncle Derek Prindle and a friend from UNC.

In addition to being valedictorian at her high school, Weyer was also valeditorian of her college graduating class.