Flames Track & Field senior awarded $12,500 in Go Teach Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway

Liberty University senior Hunter Flack, a pole vaulter in the Flames’ Track & Field program, was awarded $12,500 in tuition assistance from the College Football Playoff Foundation and Dr Pepper as the grand prize recipient of Conference USA’s Go Teach Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway. Flack received the award at a surprise presentation on Monday morning during the weekly track & field team meeting at the Liberty Indoor Track Complex with his teammates and parents in attendance.

The tuition giveaway awards one grand prize from each FBS conference to student-athletes pursuing careers in education. Flack is Liberty’s first recipient of the giveaway, awarded $10,000 as the CUSA’s overall winner and $2,500 as Liberty’s institutional nominee.

Flack, who is pursuing a B.S. in Physical Education and Health, has earned numerous honors for his work in the classroom. A year ago, he was voted to the CUSA All-Academic Team and earned both CUSA Commissioner’s Honor Roll and CUSA Commissioner’s Academic Medal recognition.

Nominees were recommended by campus representatives based on their aspirations to pursue a career in teaching or coaching; the grand prize winner was selected by the College Football Playoff Foundation Go Teach Committee.

The CFP Foundation and Dr Pepper are dedicated to growing the Go Teach initiative to place qualified teachers in classrooms across the nation.

Flames and Lady Flames Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field Head Coach Lance Bingham said Flack and his fellow senior teammates who will graduate in May have set a standard of excellence for the underclassmen to follow.

“At the end of the day, our goal is that in 10 years from now, you guys are serving the Lord faithfully, and when I look at this group of upperclassmen, that’s what I am confident in,” Bingham said. “Hunter is going to be impacting kids for the Kingdom. He is going to be influencing lives in an awesome way as he teaches, and that’s what does my heart good.”

Also on Monday, Liberty Director of Athletics Ian McCaw recognized another member of the Flames’ Track & Field program, redshirt senior thrower Beau Backes, as the winner of the CUSA Winter Spirit of Service award. The award is presented three times throughout the season, with Friday’s honorees representing track & field and basketball.

Backes is active within the Lynchburg community, volunteering regularly at the Runk & Pratt Assisted Living Home where he plays bingo with the residents. He also participates in a Pen Pal Program, writing letters back and forth with a resident.

Backes also reads in elementary schools weekly through the Learn Like Liberty Program and is a group leader for the Aspire Class for Sports Clinics, a class of adults with special needs and disabilities. He also attended the Hop on Pop reading event and the North Pole Disability Outreach Day.

A two-time member of the USTFCCCA All-Academic Team, Backes boasts a 3.56 GPA in pursuit of his B.Ed. in Biology Education. In competition, Backes placed fourth in the men’s shot put at the 2025 CUSA Indoor Track & Field Championships with a personal-best throw of 54 feet.