Courtney Tennant started playing basketball in elementary school and has played all the way through graduate school. In addition to setting records and earning awards throughout her four years as center for RIT’s Women’s Basketball team, Tennant was able to earn her Bachelor’s degree in New Media Marketing within her first three years at RIT.  This year, she will be earning her Master’s in Business Administration, which she is finishing up this semester.

“This year was definitely the hardest year being a grad student and playing,” said Tennant. “I wasn’t expecting it to be as big of a transition as it was.” Tennant was able to not only brave the transition but succeed with flying colors. This past January, the College Sports Information Directors of America voted her onto the Capital One Academic All-America Division III women’s basketball second team and Academic All-District First Team for both her sports statistics and her 3.8 GPA.

Both Tennant and head women’s basketball coach Amy Reed were extremely proud of this achievement. “I think that was just a nice way to show off my accomplishments of being a student but also being an athlete,” said Tennant.

But for Tennant, what really made her time playing at RIT worthwhile was the bond with her team. When asked about her favorite thing from her time in college basketball, Tennant replied, “Probably the teammates I’ve made along the way. They become so much more than teammates. They’re really my family.”

Reed explained that for the last three years the team didn’t have an overall winning season. “This year, [she] and three other seniors worked really hard and we had a winning season and made it to the conference tournaments,” she said. “I’m really most proud of her for that, for bringing the whole team along and just bringing us to where we are today.”

“We’ll miss her,” Reed continued.  “It’s going to be hard to fill her shoes. It really will.”