Kaylee Egerer, a freshman from Rochester, Mich., understands how injuries affect student athletes because she hurt her back, which kept her from continuing to cheerlead in high school.

So, when Western athletics department officials asked her how they should use the $10,000 her uncle donated to athletics, she said she wanted to help injured athletes.

“Here I was, an eighteen-year-old freshman with all this money on my hands,” she said.

The Wilson Family Endowment will fund scholarships for injured athletes starting in the fall, Egerer said.

This is the first endowment at Western for injured student athletes, she said.

Athletes often get to keep their athletic scholarship when injured, Athletics Director Wood Selig said. The endowment will allow student athletes to stay on scholarship without using one of their team’s scholarships.

Egerer’s uncle Jeff Wilson, a Hilton Head, S.C. resident and 1972 Western graduate, said he donated $10,000 to Western athletics in December. Then he donated $5,000 more in honor of his friend, Herb King, who died recently.

King, who lived in Hilton Head, also graduated from Western, Wilson said.

Egerer said her family donated out of loyalty to Western and ability to donate.

Seven of her family members graduated from Western, she said in an e-mail.

Egerer said she thinks her family and friends will continue to donate to the endowment.

Selig said providing support for student athletes is a good way to recruit and retain them.

Egerer said the scholarship will help Western with recruiting student athletes because it shows them that there will be another form of support if they get injured while playing a sport for Western.

Wilson said he wasn’t a college athlete, but he’s seen students drop out of school because they are injured and can’t afford college without scholarships.

Selig said a committee will chose the scholarship recipients each semester.

Egerer said she’s on the committee, but the other members haven’t been chosen.

Coaches will submit requests for the injured athletes to receive the scholarships, Selig said.

They will chose one male and one female student to get the scholarship after enough money is raised, he said.

Egerer said the endowment will support one student next year, but she hopes it will grow to support two students in the future.

There aren’t injured athletes every year, so the endowment will grow when the scholarships aren’t used, she said.

Egerer said she’s working with the Student Government Association to get more money for the endowment.

“I hope it never has to be used, but if it does, it’ll be there,” she said.

Next year’s scholarship recipient hasn’t been chosen, Egerer said.