Jaamal Carter, being presented the newly named Greg Gavin Award of Excellence by Greg Gavin himself at the 40th annual Loyalist Athletics Banquet.
photo by Kirsten Geisler
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Excellence Award renamed on Gavin's behalf
by Kirsten Geisler
Loyalist's annual athletic banquet took place Wednesday night to honour outstanding student athletes, and one unsuspecting staff member.
For the 40th year, Loyalist College recognized its athletes with the annual athletic banquet held in the Shark Tank Pub. This year, however, a member of faculty was also honoured with an award named for him.
"It's our last chance to recognize them and thank them for their commitment. We get a really strong turnout," says Jim Buck, assistant director of athletics.
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Buck, was also proud to mention that 45 varsity athletes made the honour roll, which means about 50 per cent of athletes made the Dean's List. Buck went on to add, "On top of that we have six kids that are going to be CCA academic Canadians, impressive because, not only do you have to have the academics, but you need to be recognized as a provincial all-star. So, it's tough to combine those, to be named as an OCA tournament all-star and have that Dean's List average."
The surprise of the night, however, came with the renaming of the Award of Excellence. The award is presented to a student athlete at Loyalist who show a level of outstanding commitment and dedication towards varsity athletics. This special award is not handed out every year. This year the award is being renamed the Greg Gavin Award of Excellence. Gavin, director of athletics and a teacher at Loyalist for 32 years, had not been aware of the award being named after him before the banquet took place. Buck wanted the renaming to be a surprise.
"[Gavin] hates the spotlight on him. "When you've been here 32 years and done the things he has done, it's sort of fitting, because there's some special recognition," says Buck.
The Greg Gavin award was given to Jaamal Carter, of the men's varsity basketball team and the all-time leading scorer in Lancer history. He received a special lettered basketball with his name on it and his point total. There was also a special presentation, to honour his record-breaking points total.
Along with the award of excellence, the other prestigious award given were the male and female athlete of the year awards. The winners were Kara Muhlhausen of the varsity women's basketball and Jamal Fletcher of the varsity men's basketball team, who are both Ontario College Athletic Association academic award winners. OCAA is a provincial award; it is given to students who meet all the criteria, and have also achieved academic success by making it to the honour roll.
"To me one of the most impressive things, [about the OCAA award]" said Buck is that it puts an end to the "stereotype" of the dumb jock.
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