Monte Stewart is this week’s Stinger Player of the Week. Stewart is a sophomore cross country star from Flambeau High School in Sheldon, Wisc.

“I feel honored to be chosen as athlete of the week. It is really cool to see the different athletes in various sports get acknowledged for their accomplishments. I really like the fact that The Stinger does this and I think it is a really popular thing on campus,” Stewart said.

The University of Wisconsin-Superior men’s cross country is a very young squad that sports only one senior.

“I started running cross country my freshman year of high school. I had never run long distance before that time. I was really into basketball and a few of my friends that were already on the team said that it would get me in great shape for basketball so I chose to run cross country over playing football, which I thought had a lot of potential injury risks to it. I wasn't very good at first, but kept improving. I started to fall in love with running after I had hated it at first. My junior year of high school our team qualified for state and then my senior year I made it to state individually. I ended up getting in touch with Paul Nisius and he convinced me to come to UWS and I am now in my sophomore year here at Superior and this is my second year on the team. We have a really young team this year with lots of potential,” Stewart said.

With all of the youth to the team, they hope to turn that in to experience next year and build towards an excellent year.

Stewart came to UW-Superior because he liked the small class sizes and campus. UW-Superior also offers his major, mass communications, and he had the opportunity to run collegiately here.