Full Circle at Carroll: A Culture of Character Becomes The Right Way To Play®

At Carroll College (MT), character has never been just something celebrated on the sidelines. It has been built into the culture.

As the NAIA’s inaugural School of Character, Carroll has long demonstrated what it means to make character an intentional part of the student-athlete experience. Now, that commitment has come full circle.

Carroll student-athlete Henry Gross has been named the 2025-26 Male A.O. Duer Scholarship Award winner, one of the NAIA’s most meaningful individual honors recognizing excellence in academics, athletics, and character.

For Carroll Director of Athletics Charlie Gross, the recognition carries an added layer of meaning: Henry is his son.

“As both his father and the Director of Athletics, I don’t think I can fully put into words what this means,” Gross said. “We are overjoyed for him and genuinely humbled by what it says about the culture we’ve worked so hard to build on this campus.”

That culture is at the heart of both the NAIA’s Champions of Character® program and The Right Way To Play®.

Champions of Character provides the foundation, challenging NAIA institutions and student-athletes to lead through integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership. The Right Way To Play brings that promise to life by showing what can happen when academics and athletics thrive together, and character remains at the center.

Henry’s story is a tangible example. His recognition represents far more than an individual achievement. It reflects a campus that made character a priority, an athletics department that helped build that culture, and a student-athlete who is now carrying those values forward. For Charlie, it also represents something deeply personal: seeing the principles he has championed professionally reflected in his own son. And perhaps that is what makes the moment at Carroll so fitting.

The inaugural School of Character helped establish what character-driven college athletics could look like. Years later, one of its own student-athletes is being nationally recognized for living it.

Academics. Athletics. Character.

At Carroll College, they aren’t competing priorities. They are part of the same story.

And that is The Right Way To Play®.