Student Well-Being

Kansas Wins Coaches’ Mentoring Challenge, Again

By Gina Cairney — December 20, 2012 1 min read
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The Sunflower State has done it again.

For the fifth year in a row, Kansas has won the Coaches’ Mentoring Challenge over Nebraska and Iowa, according to a press release, bringing in 4,385 new mentors in the state alone.

Over the past several years, the head football coaches of Kansas State University and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have competed in a friendly contest to see which state could recruit more new mentors for youths during the college football season. Last year, University of Kansas head coach Turner Gill joined the challenge in favor of Kansas.

Last year, Bryan wrote about how the state of Iowa jumped into the mix, with both University of Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz and Iowa State University coach Paul Rhoads.

The challenge tallies up the number of mentor applications submitted in each state over a three-month period.

Since the challenge began in 2008, the state of Kansas has recruited more than 23,000 new mentors to be positive role models for young children and teenagers, as part of an initiative to close the mentoring gap.

The goal for 2012 was to recruit more than 10,000 new mentors combined, but the three states recruited only about 7,500. That’s less than last year’s combined total of about 9,500 new mentors.

So what’s in store for 2013? Will the three states succeed in bringing in 10,000 new mentors? Will Kansas continue its position as a recruiting powerhouse, or will Nebraska and Iowa finally wiggle in and break the Sunflower State’s winning streak?

Image from Iowa Mentoring Partnership website

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A version of this news article first appeared in the Schooled in Sports blog.