INDIANAPOLIS – University of Indianapolis senior diver Cade Hammond and University of Missouri-St. Louis volleyball graduate student Charlotte Richards have each earned the 2023 Great Lakes Valley Conference (GLVC) Richard F. Scharf Paragon Award as the league’s male and female athlete of the year, the Conference office announced Friday.
The awards are bestowed annually by the GLVC to one male and one female student-athlete who 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.
Hammond and Richards will be formally recognized Tuesday, May 23, at the Enterprise Rent-A-Car GLVC Awards Reception in St. Charles, Missouri.
After Payton Staman won a share of the award in 2019-20, Hammond becomes the second diving student-athlete from UIndy to claim the GLVC’s top student-athlete honor, while he is the fourth overall male student-athlete to be selected from the school and third in the last four years. In his final season as a Greyhound, Hammond was named GLVC Co-Diver of the Year at the Swimming & Diving Championships after breaking the GLVC record in the 3-meter (614.25) to earn gold and finishing runner-up in the 1-meter (583.10). At the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships, the senior placed third (513.15) and sixth (499.80) in the 1-meter and 3-meter, respectively, earning All-America honors in both events. In 2021, the Brighton, Mich., native won the first-ever diving National title in UIndy history, claiming the top spot in the 1-meter, while also placing fourth in the 3-meter. In total, Hammond was named an All-American seven times, while helping the Greyhounds to two GLVC Championships – 2020 and 2022 – and a National Championship in 2023.
Academically, Hammond excelled in the classroom where he carried a 3.75 GPA in Criminal Justice, making the Dean’s List twice and Honor Roll four times through last fall. A four-time College Swim Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Scholar All-America First Team honoree and Academic All-American in 2022 and 2023, Hammond was also named to the Academic All-GLVC team four times and selected as a team representative at the 2020-21 GLVC Character Plus Initiative.
Additionally, he has served as a teaching assistant for three years, helping with setting up mock crime scenes and other experiential activities to assist students during the labs and to role play crime victims, witnesses, and suspects. In the summer of 2021, he interned with the Detroit Office of Homeland Security.
Richards is the first female student-athlete and second overall student-athlete from Missouri-St. Louis to win the GLVC’s most prestigious honor. The other recipient for the Tritons came in 2003-04, when baseball player Logan Hughes took home the award.
The outside hitter earned a plethora of awards in her final season at UMSL in 2022, including GLVC Player of the Year, AVCA Midwest Region Player of the Year, All-GLVC First Team, AVCA and D2CCA All-America First Team, and Midwest Region All-Tournament team. In Conference matches, she led the league in points per set (4.70), kills per set (4.14), total attacks (1394), and total kills (174), while finishing top 15 in NCAA Division II in total kills (8th), total attacks (8th), point per set (11th), and kills per set (13th). Richards helped her squad to a 25-7 record, winning the NCAA Midwest Region and reaching the NCAA Semifinals.
After a five-year career and 514 sets played, Richards leaves the Tritons as one of the greatest volleyball players in program history. The three-year captain won three GLVC Player of the Year awards, was a First Team AVCA All-American twice and Second Team once, and was named GLVC Offensive Player of the Week five times. Her best statistical season came in 2021, when she led both the Conference and NCAA in total kills with 569 for a single season program record. Richards also tops the UMSL record books in single-season kill attempts (1,704; 2021), career kills (1931), and career kill attempts (5,893). Her 133 career service aces are fifth-best in Triton history, as well. In her five seasons, UMSL had a 109-39 (.736) overall record and 60-20 (.750) Conference mark, finishing runner-up twice in the GLVC Tournament (2019, 2021) and appearing in the NCAA Tournament three times (2019, 2021, 2022).
In the classroom, Richards was nearly perfect, earning her undergraduate degree in Supply Chain Management with a 3.97 GPA and Master’s in Supply Chain Data Analytics with a 4.0 GPA. She received Academic All-GLVC honors all four years, GLVC Volleyball Scholar-Athlete of the Year twice (2021, 2022), and First and Second Team Academic All-America once apiece. The Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native appeared on the Dean’s List seven times and claimed the GLVC Brother James Gaffney Distinguished Scholars award twice in her time at UMSL. She was also enrolled in the Pierre Laclede Honors College, a certificate program to which top academic students can apply.