Fowler Scholar-Athletes Participate in 2021 Fall Sports Season
San Diego State University recently began holding in-person audience events for the university’s fall sports programs for the first time since 2019. Many of those student-athletes participating in fall sports are considered SDSU scholar-athletes, meaning that they have earned a 3.2 GPA for the previous semester or a 3.0 cumulative GPA.
SDSU’s Fowler College of Business is proud to highlight the stories of three scholar-athletes:
SDSU Volleyball Player Emerges as a Strong Student and a Strong Person
Zoi Faki is in her first year as a San Diego State volleyball player and as a student in the Fowler College of Business where she is pursuing her Master of Science in the Global Business Development (MSGBD) program.
Soi Faki, SDSU Volleyball
Faki, a native of Athens, Greece, enrolled at SDSU and the Fowler College of Business after earning her bachelor’s degree and completing one year of graduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh. While at Pitt, she earned a spot on the Atlantic Coast Conference academic honor roll four times. “After five years at Pitt, I decided it was time to spread my knowledge and leadership to a new team,” she said when asked why she transferred to SDSU. “I came here because of the opportunities offered by SDSU, I wanted to be in a good business program, and it had a team that could do something special this year. Plus, I wanted to be somewhere warmer!”
Since she started playing competitive volleyball at the age of 13, Faki said it was her dream to earn her degree while playing in the U.S. She has more than lived her dream, since Pitt made it into the NCAA women’s volleyball tournament each year she was there.
Faki said she’s grown as a person and a player since she arrived in the U.S. in 2016. “I was 18 when I first came to the U.S. and I was soft, naïve and weak, both mentally and physically,” she said. “But five years of hard work, both on and off the court made me who I am today: A strong, independent leader who’s educated, opinionated and stands on her own two feet stronger than ever.”
As for her future, Faki said that when she graduates in the spring of 2022, she would like to play professional volleyball in Europe and participate on the Greek national team in the 2024 Olympics. She also plans to utilize the skills she learns from her SDSU MSGBD degree since she plans to work in the marketing department of a large global organization, though her “dream is to one day be the CEO of a big company.”
Faki’s advice to young student-athletes is to “Take risks and believe in yourself: It’s the first and most important step you can take, and once that happens, everything else will come along. Hard work, dedication, passion and commitment will help you find what you love, and when you get that feeling, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.”
Scholar-Athlete and Aztec Wide-Receiver, Elijah Kothe Offers a Glimpse into His Hectic Schedule
Elijah Kothe (pronounced COTY) is the Aztec’s projected starter at wide receiver this season and has played with San Diego State’s football team since his freshman year.
Off the field, Kothe has excelled as a management student at the Fowler College of Business as well. As he enters his senior year, he has been named as an SDSU Scholar-Athlete three times and gotten conference recognition twice as a Mountain West Scholar-Athlete.
Elijah Kothe, SDSU Football
He said he pursued a degree in management because “it just seemed like the perfect fit for me. I’ve always been interested in the business side of sports and several academic advisors have mentioned that management would be a great major to my future endeavors,” said Kothe, who is on track to earn his degree in the spring of 2022.
In the meantime, life as an SDSU-student athlete can be hectic, as Kothe is up at the crack of dawn for team weightlifting on Mondays and Thursdays, followed by breakfast. His first class starts at 11 a.m. and afterwards, it’s off to a team meeting after classes end at 1:45 p.m. When the meeting ends, football practice begins at 3 p.m. and goes on until 6 p.m., after which he has a small window of time for dinner before he’s back in class from 7 p.m. to 9:40. “Then I go home, grab a snack, study and head off to bed,” he said.
But the regimented life of a student-athlete is no surprise to him since his father was also a wide-receiver during his college playing days. Kothe’s father, Jake, caught passes from NFL Hall of Famer, Kurt Warner, when both of them played at the University of Northern Iowa in the early 1990s.
While Kothe had a scholarship offer from his father’s alma mater, UNI, he chose to come to San Diego State because he “wanted to have coaches that cared for me as more than just a football player” and he found that in the Aztecs wide receiver coach, Hunkie Cooper. “The way Coach Cooper conducted himself and all the things I learned about him let me know that SDSU was the perfect fit for me,” said Kothe, a Las Vegas native. “Also, you can’t beat San Diego when it comes to weather and the multitude of things you’re able to do.”
As he enters his final year as an SDSU football player, Kothe has set his sights on pursuing a career in sports business. “After graduation, I really want to work in the field of athletics on either a professional or collegiate level as a coach, academic advisor or in business operations,” said Kothe as he offers this advice to those student-athletes entering their freshman year: “Find a health balance between your sport, academics and free time. You’re only in college once and I would also advise you to reach out socially to people beyond your team. You never know what building a relationship with another student or professor can do for you in the future!”
Setting Goals and Seeing Them Through Pays Dividends for Finance Student/Cross Country Athlete
Naomi Smitham isn’t just an exceptional athlete: She’s also an award-winning student. Smitham was chosen to receive a 2020 Malik Award, which are given to the top 19 San Diego State student-athletes based on GPA. Smitham was announced as a Malik winner on April 26, 2021, when SDSU’s athletics department named those scholar-athletes who earned a 4.0 semester GPA or a cumulative 4.0 GPA.
Naomi Smitham, SDSU Cross Country
Smitham, a senior majoring in finance at SDSU’s Fowler College of Business, found the award especially gratifying given her early struggles during her freshman year. “I thought college would be such an easy transition from high school, but in reality, it was a hard adjustment for me both academically and athletically,” she said. “I struggled to find balance and definitely didn’t have my priorities in line, but after my first year, I got focused and set achievable goals for myself as a cross country athlete and as a student.”
Her dedication to those goals became readily apparent during her sophomore year. Her grades improved and her comfort level increased markedly in a university setting. Smitham also made the “travel team” for cross country and had one of her best seasons ever by setting two career bests and competing in the Mountain West Cross Country Championship
A Southern California native, Smitham, decided to attend SDSU “for a combination of reasons” including the large alumni community, outstanding sports facilities and the opportunity to earn a business degree (after enrolling at SDSU, she chose to become a finance major).
Now that she is settled in and excelling as both an athlete and a scholar, Smitham is thinking about her career path when she graduates from SDSU in the spring of 2022. “I hope to either go into financial consulting for a large organization like Deloitte or go into sales/finance within the wine industry,” she said. Whatever she chooses to do, the Malik Award will certainly be a big bright spot on her already outstanding resume.
*This during the past year, SDSU had 412 scholar-athletes across 19 sports. Smitham was one of 10 cross country scholar-athletes and one of 63 from the Fowler College of Business.
