Dominating the Standard on and off the Field: Menard fits the mold of ideal student-athlete

FARGO, N.D. — During his tenure at North Dakota State, Greg Menard has been a force.

He is fourth on the all-time career sacks list at NDSU and climbing up the ladder. The three players above him were all drafted into the NFL.
The senior has 7.5 sacks through 10 games. But, if everything went according to plan, Menard wouldn’t even be playing college football anymore.

He was supposed to exhaust his final year of eligibility in 2017, before a season-ending knee injury changed his plans.

“That was terrible,” Menard said. “That was probably one of the lowest moments of my life. I was just so sad.”

Menard tore his ACL in fall camp, forcing him to redshirt and return in 2018.

But instead of dwelling on the missed opportunity, Menard found a different one. He decided to use the extra year to his advantage, in the classroom, where he could now spread out his studies as he works toward his degree.

“I should have earned [my degree] last semester, but I decided to kind of take an easier semester this year.” Menard said.

‘Easier’ is relative.

He isn’t simply coasting his way to the easiest degree he could find.

Menard is three credits away from a Civil Engineering degree, and he currently holds a 3.90 grade point average.

In addition to his on-the-field accolades, Menard is a four-time member of the Missouri Valley Football Conference honor roll, three time recipient of the conference’s Commissioner’s Academic Excellence Award. He has been named to the ADA FCS Academic All-Star team. He’s been Academic First-Team All-Conference, Academic First-Team All-District and an Academic All American, multiple times each.

Menard and his teammates think he deserves to be in the running for another award as well.

When players were asked who the biggest nerd on the team is, it was unanimous.

“Who is the biggest nerd on the team?” Menard asked back, thinking of an answer. “I’m up there. I’m pretty high up there.”

Others didn’t need as long to think about it.

“Nerd? Greg! No hesitation. Greg,” senior cornerback Jalen Allison said.

Linebacker Jabril Cox, defensive tackle Aaron Steidl and running backs Lance Dunn and Bruce Anderson also echoed the consensus.

Quarterback Easton Stick hesitated before answering, only to make sure he wasn’t being offensive.

“Greg Menard is the biggest nerd. Greg Menard is definitely the biggest nerd,” Stick said with a laugh. “He’s got his own YouTube channel. You might have to get on the Greg Menard YouTube channel, but he’s definitely the biggest nerd.”

Menard says he doesn’t mind being considered a nerd. He views it as a compliment, and a lot of it goes back to his childhood.

“I think in like fourth grade I just really liked doing math problems, and I always asked my parents to ask me long division problems and I’d try to do them in my head,” he said. “I think it makes time pass fast when you’re solving a problem. I especially like the engineering aspect of it where it’s not just the raw numbers. You’re trying to solve a bigger scope of a problem.”

But how did he fall specifically into civil engineering?

Pure chance.

“I didn’t really know which specific type I wanted to do, so I kind of just picked the first one on the pull-down and that was civil engineering because it started with a ‘C’ and I kind of just went with it and kind of found out that I liked it a lot,” Menard said.

The workload certainly keeps him occupied, but he was raised to keep his priorities in order.

“When I was growing up younger in middle school, my parents didn’t allow me to play video games during the week to teach me that if you have stuff to do, you need to get it done,” Menard said. “That’s kind of my motto. My busiest semester was my junior year spring semester. I think every day I in the computer lab working on something until about midnight. I just didn’t play much video games at all. I try to keep the social aspect there, because I think it’s important to hang out with people and have human interaction instead and not just be a zombie all day long.”

Juggling several things at once is second-nature to Menard at this point.

One of the reasons he has been so successful in his playing career is his ability to still focus on each individual task.

“When he’s here [at practice], the two hours, three hours a day, he’s completely here with his mind and his body,” NDSU defensive coordinator Matt Entz said. “Some guys may have a big test or something and maybe they’re worrying about it subconsciously, I don’t think Greg ever falls into that.”

Menard says he tries to take the lessons he learned from the gridiron and apply them to the rest of his life.

“I kind of think if you’re doing bad in one aspect of your life, it kind of carries over,” he said. “Coach Entz always talks about that. If you’re doing bad in the classroom, you’re not going to be doing good on the football field. And, if you’re doing good, you’re going to be doing good on the football field. So, I kind of use that as my mindset and kind of take it slow and make sure I do the little things right.”