KU News Release

Graduation stories: Time management is secret to success for scholar-athlete

Rebecca Feickert

LAWRENCE — Rebecca Feickert doesn’t have to think long when asked about her favorite memory of her time at the University of Kansas.

A member of the women’s basketball team since 2006, Feickert loves and appreciates the team’s loyal fan base. But it is the record crowd of 16,113 at the championship game of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament that will rebound in her mind forever.

“Having the student section full was really amazing, having all those people there,” said Feickert of the game, which KU lost 75-71 to University of South Florida.

Feickert has accomplished her own amazing feat, graduating in just three years with perfect or nearly perfect grade point averages each semester — all while keeping up with her responsibilities to her team and her coaches.

“Rebecca Feickert has to be one of the hardest working individuals I have ever been around,” said Katie O’Connor, assistant women’s basketball coach. “She took her natural abilities and rather than just get by on those alone, she chose to outwork people and become a tremendously successful person. A self-made achiever, she takes pride in that work ethic and challenges herself every day to become even better.”

Feickert has wanted to be an accountant since she was a sophomore in high school in Goodrich, N.D. She says her brain is just wired for accounting.

“Becca is truly a scholar-athlete,” said Raquel Meyer Alexander, assistant professor of accounting. “She demonstrates ethics, integrity, leadership and excellence on the court and in the classroom. Her positive spirit and love for all things KU are contagious.”

In addition to basketball and schoolwork, Feickert has been active in Beta Gamma Sigma, a national scholastic honor society in business, and the Student Athlete Advisory Council, which acts as a liaison between athletics and the administration and lobbies the Kansas Legislature. She also volunteers with Big Brothers Big Sisters and reads to children at Sunset Hill Elementary in Lawrence, where her “little sister” attends.

“I feel like I’m big sister to the entire school,” she said.

Feickert will begin an internship in the tax department at Ernst & Young in New York City on June 1. In the fall, she will return to KU to work on a master’s degree in accounting. She also will be a graduate assistant in the financial aid office of the athletics department. She also has considered law school down the road.

She says her secret to success is actually tunnel vision — what she has to do right now, today.

“It’s definitely been tough,” she said. “But not only student athletes can relate — anyone in activities or the greek system or people who have jobs — it’s time management.”

Feickert is the daughter of Terry and Karen Feickert of Goodrich, N.D., and a graduate of Goodrich High School.

-30-

The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.