Published on August 15, 2016  

As I was watching the members of our football team in their scrimmage on Saturday morning, I remembered a voicemail message, received a few weeks ago by Martin Newton, our Athletics Director, which Martin forwarded to me.  The message was from a local resident and a former collegiate athlete at another university, and he was calling to offer appreciation to Jake Kingree and Devlin Hodges, two Samford football players, for finding his wallet (with $200 to $300 in it), locating him on Facebook, and returning the lost item to him.  He praised Jake and Devlin for “their honesty and integrity,” closing the message by saying, “I’m a Samford fan now!”  Before playing their first game of the season, the members of our team are already winners.

The world is better because of Samford’s core values of “integrity, honesty, and justice,” as so often exemplified by our students.

 

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.