Banquet honors Aggie student athletes
Utah State hosted its second annual U-Stars Student Athlete Awards Banquet last night in the USU ballroom.
Thirteen awards were handed out to student athletes and one super fan. Nominees for the banquette were selected by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). The nominees were judged by a panel made up of members of the athletic staff. Lance Brown, one of the judges, said winners for each award were picked by the judges voting on which person or team most deserved the award.
SAAC president Nnamdi Gwacham said, “This is the second time we have done this, last year was the first time we ever did this so we kind of didn’t know what to expect. This year it was a little bit better, we had a little bit more time to plan it, and a little bit more people showed up.”
In its second year the banquet opened up its doors to HURD members, where previously only student-athletes were invited.
“This year we opened it up to the HURD because the HURD is the biggest club on campus and they are the die-hard fans for student athletes so we had to open it up to them,” Gwacham said.
John Strang of the track team and Danyelle Snelgro of women’s basketball took home the awards of the night with best male athlete and best female athlete, respectively.
The crowd favorite was the award for best blooper, which was won by Jarvon Graves of the football team. The banquet crowd burst into laughter and cheering as video showed Graves jumping from a platform at the USU ropes course attempting to grab onto a trapeze rope. As he jumped the platform broke into pieces and Graves missed the trapeze handle, sending him falling toward the earth until his safety harness caught him with a painful jolt.
Gwacham also thought the best blooper was the best award of the night.
“Oh my goodness, there were three great nominees for the best blooper award, but the one for Javon was just out of this world,” Gwacham said.
Other awards included female newcomer of the year, which was won by Shantel Flanary of the soccer team. Male newcomer of the year was taken by by Jared Quayle of the men’s basketball team. The women’s basketball team won the most improved team of the year. Best individual performance was won by Sonia Grabowska of the track and field team. Female walk-on of the year was taken by Cady Andelin of the tennis team and male walk-on of the year was won by John V. Johnson of the track and field team. Best team upset of the year was won by the women’s volleyball team for their upset over 16th-ranked Purdue. Athletic trainer of the year was won by Ali Jeske and best team performance of the year was taken by the women’s soccer team.
The night was capped off with the ultimate fan of the year award won by Dalen Van Wagner for racking up the most HURD point’s by attending the most athletic events this year.
The main goal of the U-Stars banquet was to honor student athletes.
“We just wanted to make sure we had student athletes come,” Qwacham said. “You know that’s the first and foremost thing on our minds is to have student athletes represented.”
USU hopes U-Stars will become a star of its own some day.
“We hope in the future we can make the event a little bit bigger. Hopefully we can get staff and more students to take place in the event so it can be something that will be talked about on campus,” Gwacham said.
–p.d.k@aggiemail.usu.edu