Harvey Mudd College junior and Claremont-Mudd-Scripps nose guard Paul Slaats has been given the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) Defensive Athlete of the Year award for Division III football.<\/p>\n
For the 2015 season, the Stags led the conference in points allowed per game (21.9), rushing yards allowed per game (105.8) and interceptions (17). Slaats<\/a> captained the defensive line with 46 tackles on the season and led the team with 7.5 \u201ctackles for loss,\u201d setting opponents back 14 yards. This is Slaats\u2019 second All-SCIAC award after a previous First Team selection in 2014, during which Slaats started all nine games and tallied 32 tackles, one sack and one fumble recovery.<\/p>\n Justin Luthey, CMS football defensive line coach, calls Slaats the most hardworking, dedicated and compassionate player he\u2019s ever coached.<\/p>\n \u201cHe has held himself to a standard of excellence and was never satisfied with his performance, \u201c says Luthey. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a play in any practice or game that he took off, and he was always hungry to improve. He was dedicated in his off-season training and to his role in our defense fully.\u201d<\/p>\n Luthey says Slaats was so dominant against opposing offensive lines, in fact, that teams rarely, if ever, tried to run the ball between the tackles.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was the cog that our defense revolved around, and [he] wreaked havoc on opponents\u2019 game plans,\u201d says Luthey.<\/p>\n Defensive coordinator Mark Odin notes that Slaats\u2019 strength, intelligence and dedication make him a natural leader on the defensive line.<\/p>\n \u201cThe success of our defense is predicated on how well he does at his position,\u201d says Odin. \u201cHe is consistently asking ways that he can master his craft.\u00a0His athletic ability, understanding of our defensive structure, physicality and work ethic are solid foundations that allow him to continue to succeed and are also contagious to our team.\u201d<\/p>\n Head coach Kyle Sweeney calls Slaats an \u201cexcellent teammate\u201d and says that he\u2019s been instrumental in helping to recruit more football players to Harvey Mudd College.<\/p>\n \u201cPaul has worked very hard to make himself a better football player and really is the focal point in the middle of our defense,\u201d says Sweeney. \u201cOver the past two years, we have been very difficult to run the football against.\u00a0A lot of that starts with Paul in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n Sweeney adds that, while their defensive schemes don\u2019t always lend themselves to Slaats \u201cputting up big statistics,\u201d his impact is \u201chuge.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect big things from Paul as a senior,\u201d says Sweeney.<\/p>\n In addition to earning SCIAC Defensive Player of the Year, the junior team captain was also one of just 77 players named to D3Football.com\u2019s 2015 All-West Region Team<\/a>, chosen from 249 nominations by all Division III member schools.<\/p>\n On the academic side, the engineering major with a concentration in economics has undertaken several internships during his time at the College, most recently working with alumnus Olivier Chaine \u201995 performing data analytics and software development in the field of landing page optimization. He credits engineering professors Kash Gokli, Gordon Krauss and Albert Dato, as well as Professor of Economics Gary Evans, with encouraging him in his academic pursuits. Slaats aspires to work as an entrepreneur and eventually start his own business incorporating technology and finance.<\/p>\n