Chris Blewitt earns Academic All-America honors
St. Joe’s men’s lacrosse attackman Chris Blewitt was named to the 2018 Academic All-America Division 1 Men’s At-Large Third Team. He became the second Hawk in history to receive the honor after Chris Mclsaac earned it back in 1997.
How have you been able to maintain a strong athletic and academic balance throughout your time at St. Joe’s?
It certainly wasn’t the easiest thing to do. In order to do what you want athletically while also pursuing high academics requires sacrifice and discipline. Two things that Coach Wray preached to us from the very beginning was being able to channel values that we’ve learned as athletes towards the academic side of college. Excelling in lacrosse takes hours of practice and excelling in the classroom takes doing extra work and dedicating time in the library. You need to put yourself on a structured program so you can achieve the goals that you want to achieve.
Who has had the most influence on you throughout your four years here?
It’s difficult to pick out one person. I’ve been fortunate enough to be around a group of tremendous people, whether that be professors, coaches or teammates. You look up to certain guys. Being a part of this program, you’re making sure you’re doing all the right things while building yourself into a respectable man.
How would you say that your leadership skills transfer from the classroom to the field and vice versa?
Leadership is something that we talk about a lot at St. Joe’s. Our offensive coordinator, Dan Keating, someone that I’ve built a good relationship with, has spoken about leadership with me quite a bit in terms of how it transfers on and off the field. A person who is a leader is someone who is inclusive and gets everyone to put their minds together exploring new topics, whether that’s on the lacrosse field or in the classroom. It’s all about being inclusive and getting everybody to explore their own ideas about the subject matter while coming to a collective understanding that the group has.
What do you want to be remembered by at St. Joe’s?
The best compliment you can get from anyone is being a great teammate, he was someone that put the interests of the group before his own. Someone who really did everything he could to make sure that not only he succeeded but more importantly that everyone around him succeeded. I always tried to be the guy that kept everyone going in the right direction, to help the lacrosse team win a championship or help a classmate learn a topic.
What are your plans and the goals that you have set in place for the future?
I’m really excited to start this next phase of my life. It’s what you work for after four years of college. You set yourself up to succeed in the real world. I have a good job in the finance industry in New York. I’ll start off with that and do whatever I can to be a good learner and contribute to the team. I think that it will be a very good learning experience. I can’t really say that I know what I want to do yet. I hope to be successful at what I’m doing and also be ready to jump into a new experience.
