INDIANAPOLIS – Maryville University senior wrestler Nick Rodriguez and Lewis University graduate basketball standout Jamie Johnson have earned the Great Lakes Valley Conference’s Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the league’s male and female athlete of the year, the Conference office announced Monday.
The awards are bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete that display academic excellence, athletic ability and achievement, character, and leadership. It is named in honor of former GLVC Commissioner as well as coach and director of athletics at Saint Joseph's College.
Rodriguez and Johnson will be recognized Tuesday, May 23, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Banquet at the Drury Plaza Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri.
Rodriguez is the first male or female Saint to be recognized as the Conference’s top student-athlete and also the first wrestler to win the award in the inaugural season as a league-sponsored sport. He competed in the 141-pound weight class all four years of his collegiate career, with his last two spent at Maryville. In his final season on the mat, Rodriguez went 32-2 overall with a 6-0 record in the GLVC. He recorded nine falls, three tech falls and two major decisions and was the ninth-most dominant overall wrestler in NCAA Division II. The No. 1-ranked wrestler in his weight class, among NCAA D-II competitors, was named to the All-GLVC First Team and went on to win the D-II Super Region III championship before becoming the NCAA National Champion shortly thereafter. In addition, he was named the Super Region III Wrestler of the Year, which includes all weight classes, and picked up National Wrestling Coaches Association (NWCA) All-America honors as well. As a junior, he was also ranked atop Division II at 141, and won the Super Regional title but suffered a season-ending injury before having the chance the compete for the national title.
As a team, Maryville finished seventh at this year’s NCAA meet and went 10-2 overall while 5-1 in GLVC dual meet competition. In Rodriguez’s tenure as a Saint, the team went 17-7, while his individual two-year record in St. Louis was 56-4 with 27 falls.
In the classroom, the Neosha, Missouri, native graduated with a 3.969 cumulative GPA in biochemistry with a biology minor. He participated in undergraduate science research titled “Characterization and Use of a Microspectrophotometer for Quantitative Bioapplications” and helped in the design and testing of two versions of the device over the past 18 months. He was awarded Academic All-America honors by CoSIDA in 2015 and is a nominee this year while a four-year NWCA All-American. He will be a GLVC Academic All-Conference team member, was named the Maryville Male Student-Athlete of the Year and was also chosen as Maryville’s selection for the GLVC James R. Spalding Sportsmanship Individual Award. Furthermore, Rodriguez was accepted into medical school at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences. In the community he participated in a number of community service projects, including the Maryville Reaches Out day of service across campus.
Johnson becomes just the second Lewis female student-athlete to be honored with the Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award. In addition to being the second Flyer female after Mary Moskal was the 2006-07 recipient, she is the fifth overall Flyer to earn the top league honor.
The coveted distinction comes at the conclusion of the talented graduate’s career on the basketball court after she battled through two injuries yet returned to garner numerous honors both athletically and academically during her remaining years at Lewis. Johnson made an immediate impact on the team, starting as a freshman guard before succumbing to injury as a sophomore. When she returned to the hardwood as a redshirt-sophomore, she earned First Team All-GLVC honors along with being named to the NCAA Division II Midwest Region All-Tournament team. The very next season she raked in the honors, including Daktronics First Team All-Region and Third Team All-American, WBCA Honorable Mention All-America, All-GLVC First Team, Defensive Team and Player of the Year to go with two Player of the Week accolades. The 2015-16 season followed with a promising start, as she earned the campaign’s first GLVC Player of the Week award after two games scoring over 20 points. Unfortunately, four games later and just one shy of Conference competition, she re-injured her knee and was sidelined the remainder of the season. The silver lining came in her final season, though, where she became an All-American again, being recognized on the honorable mention squad by WBCA and Division II Bulletin. She also became Lewis’ all-time leading scorer with 2,059 points and was named to the All-GLVC First Team.
During Johnson’s tenure, she helped Lewis go from a team that went 8-20 overall and 5-13 in the GLVC when she was a freshman to her final season at 23-9 overall and 13-5 in the league. The turnaround also included five consecutive trips to the GLVC Championship and NCAA Tournament, as well as a Conference title. The year before her second injury, as a redshirt-junior, the Flyers advanced to the semifinal round of the GLVC tournament and all the way to the NCAA Elite Eight after winning the Midwest Regional title. When healthy, Johnson helped Lewis go 90-39 (.697) overall and an impressive 51-21 (.708) in league play. Statistically, she ended her career leaving her mark not only in the University annals but also on the national level with three top-five active career marks in total points, field-goal percentage (59.0) and field goal attempts (1,633).
Academically, the South Holland, Illinois, native was a six-time recipient of the Br. David Delahanty Award that is given to Lewis student-athletes for academic excellence. She is on pace to be a six-time Academic All-GLVC selection, having carried an unblemished 4.0 GPA as an undergraduate and then as a graduate student. In 2014 she was named a Capital One Academic All-District pick; in 2015 she was a Capital One Academic All-America First Team member, the NCAA Elite 89 winner for academic excellence amongst all participants at that year’s NCAA Tournament and the Lewis Senior Student-Athlete of the Year; in 2016 she was given the D-II ADA Academic Achievement Award; and in 2017 she was picked as a CoSIDA Academic All-America First Team choice. In the community, Johnson has volunteered at various soup kitchens and food pantries, helped raise funds for Make-A-Wish and Ronald McDonald House, volunteered her time as a meet assistant for the Chicagoland Track & Field Championships in 2014 and spoke to various Chicagoland elementary schools since 2012. On campus, she spent five years as a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and Intercollegiate Athletic Advisory Committee, was a camp counselor for Lewis youth basketball camps and, in 2014, volunteered as a pilot leader for the University’s Welcome Days.