News 3 Sports would like to congratulate our latest Classroom Champion, Matt Bitara. The Huntsville High School senior has a 3.72 GPA and is ranked in the top ten percent of his class.

Matt is a member and the captain of the Hornet swim team. He has been the District and Regional Champion for the past three years. Matt also received two bronze medals last year at the UIL State Meet. And for the past two years Matt was named an USA Swimming Scholastic All-American. Matt's other extracurricular include, the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, the Aggie Swim Club, Key Club, and the Varsity Choir.

"I have seen Matthew swim since he was a youngster. And seen the discipline that it took even as a kid and his drive to be successful and improve year after year to work hard and improve. I think that discipline that he gets from being an athlete…I think it spills over into the classroom. Sometimes Matthew's kind of hard on himself. I have to tell 'him its ok you are investing a lot of time doing extracurricular things. If he slips and makes a "B" he gets upset about it."

"Matt's definitely a leader by example, by the work that he puts in the pool everyday, by showing up and doing exactly what I ask him, by his respectfulness for all his teammates and his coaches. He's not your "rah rah" kind of guy! But yet he shows everybody what needs to be done just by what he does in the workouts and how he handles himself with his races.

"For me, being a scholar athlete definitely been hard…Training in the morning, then getting school, tired because of the training, and studying really hard in and outside of school, and after school I have swimming again. It's definitely been hard, but it's all about discipline, really. And if you don't have the discipline, then I wouldn't be where I am today.

After high school, Matt's plans on attending college to major in biology in hopes of one day becoming a dentist.

Congratulations to Matt Bitara of Huntsville High School. This week's News 3 Sports Classroom Champion!