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Missy Farrar enters her fourth year as the student success specialist for the Louisiana Tech football program, working closely with Assistant Athletics Director Lisa Merritt in the academic center.
Farrar oversees the academic progress of Bulldog players while also advising them regarding course schedules, monitoring eligibility status and providing general academic guidance.
Since joining the Tech athletics department, Farrar has teamed up with Merritt to help the University's student-athletes excel in the classroom. This past year, they were instrumental in helping eight of the 16 NCAA sanctioned programs at LA Tech earn their highest multi-year APR score ever while also seeing 94 student-athletes earn academic all-WAC honors.
Farrar's work with the Bulldog football players has shown results as this past year the program recorded its highest multi-year and single-year APR scores ever, while the team grade point average has also increased in each of Farrar's three years on staff.
During the past three years, 40 Bulldogs have earned their undergraduate degrees. Six student-athletes on this year's team that have already earned their degrees prior to stepping on the field for their final year of competition. Additionally, more than 25 LA Tech football players have earned academic all-WAC honors since 2007.
Former linebacker Quin Harris was named a 2008 National Scholar-Athlete by the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame, earning him an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship. Harris was one of only 15 student-athletes to earn the award and was Louisiana Tech's first ever recipient.
The Delhi native served as the senior admissions counselor and recruiter in the Louisiana Tech admissions department since August of 2005 before moving to athletics. Farrar's experiences in the admissions department at Tech where she recruited, evaluated and advised students helped increase her awareness of the issues that affect student-athletes on a daily basis such as progression and eligibility.
She earned her bachelor's degree in kinesiology from Louisiana Tech in 2002 while completing her master's degree in athletic administration from the University of Southern Mississippi in December of 2004.
