INDIANAPOLIS – The Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) has identified 536 student-athletes who have earned the GLVC Brother James Gaffney DistinguishedScholar Award, it was announced on Wednesday. Among those, includes a school record 24 William Jewell student-athletes, led by three from the women's soccer program. This mark surpasses the previous record of 22, set back in 2019-2020.
Named after Brother James Gaffney FSC, former President of Lewis University for over 28 years and two-term Chair of the GLVC Council of Presidents, the award is presented annually to student-athletes competing in GLVC-sponsored sports who achieve a 4.0 grade point average during the course of the academic year. The total number of honorees includes the 13 full-time GLVC members, as well as eligible associate league members.
In addition to women's soccer, men's basketball, football, men's and women's golf, volleyball and men's soccer all had two student-athletes on the list while baseball, women's basketball, softball, men's and women's tennis, men's wrestling and men's and women's swimming each had one.
The GLVC has seen a significant rise in perfect 4.0 GPAs since the inception of the award in 2016-17, although it began tracking the unblemished marks in 2013-14 as part of the Academic All-GLVC process. After seeing 114 students earn 4.0 GPAs in 2013-14 and 118 in 2014-15, the total spiked 52 percent to 179 in 2015-16, and then 54 percent to 275 in 2016-17 for the inaugural honor. The total jumped to a record 298 students across 15 full-time member institutions in 2017-18, and the league maintained its impressive position with 292 from 14 full-time schools in 2018-19, before nearly doubling the previous record with an 89 percent increase across 16 schools in 2019-20 at 555. The 2020-21 total of 530 was not far off the record set the previous year, despite there being only 15 full-time league members. The 2021-22 total of 581 set a new league record with a 9.62 percent increase from the previous year. While this season's total did not improve upon the record, the total for 13 league members was higher than that of several other seasons when more member schools were eligible.
The complete list of GLVC Distinguished Scholar Athletes from William Jewell (in alphabetical order):
Kaleb Becker, Men's Basketball
Kaci Behrens, Volleyball
Jacob Berkheimer, Men's Swimming
Skyler Boylan, Women's Basketball
Victor Cascio, Men's Golf
Jonathan Clark, Football
Alex Epp, Baseball
Gillian Evans, Women's Tennis
Lily Frazier, William Jewell
Megan Giffin, Women's Soccer
Frida Hammarlund, Women's Golf
Claire Hays, Women's Swimming
Evan Highfill, Men's Golf
Corrine Hughes, Women's Soccer
John Jenkins, Men's Wrestling
Kate Lawrence, Women's Soccer
Jace Laws, Softball
Max Quennery, Men's Tennis
Karis Saplys, Football
Katie Simms, Women's Track & Field
Samantha Thompson, Volleyball
Katie Wagenheim, Women's Soccer
Kanwar Warya, Men's Soccer
Keaton Wiley, Men's Soccer
Eli Wingert, Men's Basketball
