University of New Mexico Alumni Lettermen’s Association Lettermen Scholarships

How to give:

• Join and pay dues – become an active member
• Volunteer time – contact Madison
• Create a new scholarship (ex. Ralph Youngberg)
• Donate directly through the 5th Year Scholarship Program – contact Madison Create your own scholarship!
  You can raise funds and create a scholarship. Contact Madison Warren to explore options.The Alumni Lettermen’s Association promotes and enhances varsity athletics and higher education at UNM by providing fifth-year commemorative scholarships to UNM student-athletes.Here is one example to consider:
  Ralph C. Youngberg Memorial Tournament/Endowment: The Youngberg family, along with lettermen Gig Brummell and Fred Chreist, organized and held a golf tournament three years in row in memory of the late Ralph C. Youngberg. Proceeds from the golf tournament have established a permanent endowment at UNM. The endowment provides scholarships for UNM golfers (men and/or women).

  Success Stories
  Lettermen Scholarships Make a Difference!
  Thank You Letters

  “I would like to thank you all for your generosity in presenting me with the Ralph Youngberg Memorial Golf Scholarship. I am truly honored to receive this scholarship and I look forward to using this opportunity to further my education as I pursue a master’s degree in business administration. Thank you again.”– Alexandra Phelps, Lobo Women’s Golf

  “I was so pleased to receive your letter informing me of the award from the UNM Alumni Lettermen’s Association. It is rewarding to know that my four years playing for the UNM men’s team has resulted in your reward. This will help me to pursue both my tennis and academic career.”

  “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at UNM, which has proved to be a very fulfilling period in my life. Please thank the Alumni on my behalf.”-(Alexander) Max Jones, Lobo Men’s Tennis

  “I would like to thank the Association for awarding me the UNM Alumni Lettermen Fifth Year Scholarship. This scholarship will give me the opportunity to continue my educational goals. I appreciate the help you have given me and the help you have given others.” – Joseph Garcia, Lobo Track & Field

  “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your generosity in providing me with the UNM Alumni Lettermen Fifth Year Scholarship. I am greatly honored to be a recipient of this award.

  Over the past four years, I have attended the University of New Mexico as a student-athlete. As a result of hard work and determination, I have completed 140 credit hours and am graduating in December with a BA in Chemistry, concentration in Pre-Pharmacy and a minor in Psychology. My GPA at this moment, excluding my just completed nine credit hours of summer classes is a 3.13. I plan on taking 13 credit hours this fall and helping with the women’s tennis team throughout their fall season; afterwards, I will work as a pharmacy technician before entering pharmacy school.

  Receiving this scholarship motivates me to continue schooling no matter how long it is going to take. I thank you for your confidence and willingness to help me achieve my goals.” – Jennifer E. Ryba, Lobo Women’s Tennis

   

• Good News!
  UNM Lettermen Giving the Gift of Scholarships
  By Rick Wright Of the Albuquerque Journal
  Wednesday, August 1, 2007 — If you know anything about the UNM Alumni Lettermen’s Association, you’re probably aware it sponsors the school’s Athletic Hall of Honor.Beyond that, you might suspect the group exists as an excuse to swap war stories and compare surgical scars. If so, you’d be wrong.

  On Monday, the Alumni Lettermen’s Association released the names of 19 UNM athletes who’ll receive fifth-year scholarships this fall.

  Why couldn’t they have graduated in four years? Probably for the same reasons a lot of you didn’t. Some, like many other students, might have changed majors along the way. Athletes sometimes are discouraged from taking heavy academic loads from semester to semester because of the demands placed on them in their sports. In many cases, that’s the equivalent in hours of a full-time job. Having exhausted their athletics eligibility, and their grants-in-aid, without a degree, some of these kids would have struggled to graduate. That’s where the Lettermen’s Association steps in. The group has established an endowment, supported by club dues, that funds the scholarships. This has been going on for a while now.

  Kim Feldman, UNM’s associate alumni relations director, said it’s impossible to determine when a lettermen’s club first formed. It first elected a president and a board in 1954.

  It’s not clear, either, when the lettermen began awarding fifth-year scholarships. But Feldman said former baseball player Mark Johnson, coincidentally, one of this year’s Hall of Honor inductees, believes he was among the first. Johnson played for the Lobos from 1963-67.

  “He actually got his to come back and work on his master’s degree,” Feldman said.

  In the past, the fifth-year scholarship program was just called pretty much that. This year, it has been named for just-retired ski coach and UNM letterman George Brooks.

  “(Brooks) feels very indebted to the Lettermen’s Association,” Feldman said, “because he was also a fifth-year scholarship recipient and says he owes everything to that because that allowed him to complete his education.

  “That’s why he’s always been on our board and has always contributed above and beyond being a coach.”

  Feldman said this year’s group of 19 fifth-year scholarship awardees is the biggest ever. The process, she said, is a selective one.

  “(Applicants) have to have exhausted their eligibility and have less than 30 hours to complete,” she said. “Then, we go in and look at them as a committee.

  “We consider (grade-point average) very strongly, because we figure the ones with the highest GPAs are the ones most likely to finish.”

  Some of the names on this year’s list are instantly recognizable to many: women’s basketball player Julie Briody; soccer star/skiing All-American Lars Loseth; baseball slugger Daniel Stovall.

  Others, you might not: softball player Becky Dover, women’s tennis player Nora Quintal, swimmer Kelly Soldow.

  The scholarship of one of the 19, men’s golfer Charlie Beljan, actually was endowed from a different source: the Ralph Youngberg Endowment, which is golf-specific.

  If Alumni Lettermen’s Association members actually do swap war stories and compare surgical scars, there’s nothing wrong with that. But Feldman said the fifth-year scholarship program, even more than the Hall of Honor, truly is the reason the group exists.

  “I think most of our dues-paying people,” she said, “are ones who got scholarships. They just always feel like they have to keep paying back.”

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  Contact Information
  UNM Alumni Lettermen’s Association
  Attn: Madison Baumann, Executive Director
  The University of New Mexico Department of Athletics
  Colleen J. Maloof Administration Building
  MSCO4 2680 / 1 University of New Mexico
  Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001

  Phone: (505) 925-5905
  Fax: (505) 925-5609
  E-Mail: mwarren@unm.edu