Greenhills senior Mert Oral earns MHSAA Scholar-Athlete Award
Mert Oral (center) of Ann Arbor Greenhills High School was honored as a recipient of the Michigan High School Athletic Association/Farm Bureau Insurance Scholar-Athlete Award at the 2022 MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals at the Jack Breslin Student Events Center in East Lansing on March 26.
Shown with Oral are (from left): Mark Uyl, executive director of the MHSAA, and Mike Nelson, vice president of farm and commercial for Farm Bureau Insurance.
Oral will receive a $2,000 scholarship from Farm Bureau Insurance to be used at the institution of higher learning he attends this fall. Farm Bureau Insurance awarded 32 scholarships, proportionately by school classification, to students with a 3.50 or higher (on a 4.0 scale) grade point average who have previously lettered in at least one sport in which postseason competition is sponsored by the MHSAA.
Other requirements for the applicants were to show active participation in other school and community activities and produce an essay on the importance of sportsmanship in educational athletics.
Oral, who will attend the University of Michigan and study biomedical engineering, played four seasons of varsity tennis, becoming one of nine in MHSAA history to win three Finals championships at No. 1 singles, and helped Greenhills to two team titles. He earned the Mr. Tennis Award after his senior season and all-state for the fourth time, and also won 2018 USTA Midwest Closed Championships and reached finals of 2019 USTA Level 2 national tournament.
Oral served as Greenhills tennis team captain as a junior and senior. He also participated in his fourth season of Model United Nations and has served twice on executive board. Contributing for fourth year to school’s Peer to Peer math tutoring program and has served as club leader.
Oral participated in two years of DECA, winning a state championship and qualifying for international competition. He served one year as class officer.
Essay Quote: “From day one our coaches preached to us that no matter if we win or lose, we should always do it with class, and we should strive our hardest to be ambassadors for the game, to demonstrate what tennis, and all high school sports for that matter, is about: sportsmanship. I began seeing competition and matches not as something to “win or lose,” but rather as opportunities to represent myself, my teammates, and my coaches to the best of my ability.”
