BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Texas A&M track and field member Nathan Hite and Vanderbilt bowler Kristin Quah have been named the 2018-19 Southeastern Conference H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athletes of the Year, Commissioner Greg Sankey announced Thursday.
The two were chosen by a committee of Faculty Athletics Representatives from SEC universities and each will receive a $20,000 post-graduate scholarship, provided by AT&T, an SEC official sponsor. Hite and Quah will be honored at the annual SEC Awards Dinner during the SEC Spring Meetings in Sandestin, Fla., the last week of May.
“Kristin and Nathan are representative of the focus, determination and success of SEC student-athletes in competition and in the classroom,” Sankey said. “These young people are committed to the total student-athlete experience and it is reflected in the elite level of their academic and athletics accomplishments. The H. Boyd McWhorter Award is the highest honor earned by a student-athlete in the SEC and I congratulate Kristin and Nathan along with their families and universities on their outstanding achievements.”
Hite, a Mechanical Engineering major with a 3.974 grade point average at Texas A&M, twice received the NCAA Elite 90 Award for having the highest cumulative grade-point average among athletes competing in the NCAA Track & Field Championships. He placed first in 2017 CASMART Challenge (Consortium for the Advancement of Shape Memory Alloy Research and Technology), a semester-long interscholastic competition between undergraduate teams to create and test a shape memory alloy with specified properties for use in creating a space habitat.
Hite is a two-time bronze medalist in the heptathlon at 2018 and 2019 SEC Indoor Championships as well as a bronze medalist in the decathlon at 2018 SEC Outdoor Championships. His career-best heptathlon score of 5,680 points ranks as the No. 2 performer with the No. 5 performance on the Texas A&M all-time list. His decathlon career-best score of 7,774 points ranks as the No. 4 performer on the Aggie all-time list.
He earned USTFCCCA All-Academic honors in 2017 and 2018 and was named Bill Erwin male Scholar-Athlete of the Year among all sports at Texas A&M in 2018 and 2019.
Quah, who is majoring in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, has maintained a 3.95 cumulative grade point average while being named All-American on three different occasions. As one of nation’s best spare shooters, she helped the Commodores win the Southland Bowling League in 2017 before playing a key role in Vanderbilt’s NCAA title in 2018. She was named to nine all-tournament teams during her career, winning four times. Prior to Vanderbilt, Quah was a member of Singapore’s national team from 2011-2015.
She is a two-time winner (2008, 2019) of the NCAA’s prestigious Elite 90 Award at the NCAA Bowling Championship for having the highest GPA (3.95) of all competitors 2018, 2019. Quah is seven-time honoree on the Vanderbilt dean’s list, a three-time SEC Academic Honor Roll recipient and won the Biomedical Engineering Society’s Undergraduate Student Design and Research Award in 2018.
Quah is a member of Tau Beta Pi and IEEE-ETA Kappa Nu Honor Societies as well as a Vanderbilt Undergraduate Littlejohn Summer Research Scholar. She is an active participant in SAAC at Vanderbilt and taken part in the group’s holiday party and field day, which benefit Nashville-area elementary schools. She has volunteered with Feed the Children and served as a department tutor at the School of Engineering at Vanderbilt. Next year, Quah will pursue her Ph. D. while doing MRI research at Stanford University.
The 13 male finalists: Robert Howard, Alabama (Swimming & Diving); John Winn, Arkansas (Track & Field); Peter Holoda, Auburn (Swimming & Diving); Christoph Margotti, Florida (Swimming & Diving); Jackson Harris, Georgia (Football); Bowen Anderson, Kentucky (Swimming and Diving); Thomas Smith, LSU (Swimming & Diving); Beau Briggs, Ole Miss (Golf); Cole Gordon, Mississippi State (Baseball); Corey Fatony, Missouri (Football); Fynn Minuth, South Carolina (Swimming & Diving); Zhipeng (Colin) Zeng, Tennessee (Swimming & Diving); Khari Blasingame, Vanderbilt (Football).
The 13 female finalists: Emma Welch, Alabama (Soccer); Victoria Hoggard, Arkansas (Track & Field); Lauren Diaz, Auburn (Equestrian); Georgia Marris, Florida (Swimming & Diving); Emma Mandarino, Georgia (Equestrian); Katie Reed, Kentucky (Softball); Kate Zimmer, LSU (Swimming & Diving); Caroline Adams, Ole Miss (Volleyball); Logan Boss, Mississippi State (Track & Field); Britney Ward, Missouri (Gymnastics); Emma Barksdale, South Carolina (Swimming & Diving); Erica Treiber, Tennessee (Volleyball); Lisa Bratton, Texas A&M (Swimming & Diving).
Past recipients:
1986 – John Young, Tennessee (track) and Virginia Diederich, Georgia (swimming)
1987 – Jeff Noblin, Ole Miss (football) and Julie Estin, Alabama (gymnastics)
1988 – Danny Hoskins, Ole Miss (football) and Linda Leith, Georgia (swimming)
1989 – Mikael Olander, LSU (track) and Deanne Burnett, Georgia (swimming)
1990 – Burke Masters, Mississippi State (baseball) and Janice Kerr, Florida (gymnastics)
1991 – Al Parker, Georgia (tennis) and Patty Wiegand, Tennessee (track and cross country)
1992 – Jeff Laubenthal, Alabama (baseball) and Jenifer Kleyn, Auburn (volleyball)
1993 – Lang Wiseman, Tennessee (basketball) and Aimee York, Mississippi State (volleyball)
1994 – Peter Duitsman, South Carolina (soccer) and Tammy Newlon, Mississippi State (basketball)
1995 – Michael Blanchard, LSU (football) and April Ecke, Mississippi State (cross country)
1996 – Martin Nyberg, LSU (swimming) and Michelle Palmisano, Vanderbilt (basketball)
1997 – Andrew DeVooght, Georgia (swimming) and Meredith Willard, Alabama (gymnastics)
1998 – Jeremy Jackson, Mississippi State (baseball) and Shani Abshier, South Carolina (volleyball)
1999 – Jeff Zurcher, Kentucky (football) and Jessica Field, Arkansas (volleyball)
2000 – Joey Pitts, Georgia (tennis) and Lisette Lee, LSU (golf)
2001 – Scott Westerfield, Mississippi State (football) and Kim Black, Georgia (swimming)
2002 – Trey Dyson, South Carolina (baseball) and Tiffany Woolley, Arkansas (softball)
2003 – Matt Bonner, Florida (basketball) and Kristin Sterner, Alabama (gymnastics)
2004 – Caesar Garcia, Auburn (swimming & diving) and Lauren Imwalle, Alabama (soccer)
2005 – Rob Robertson, Ole Miss (football) and Lauryn McCalley, Tennessee (swimming & diving)
2006 – Rudy Niswanger, LSU (football) and Sarah Lowe, Florida (basketball)
2007 – Emeel Salem, Alabama (baseball) and Erika Schneble, Vanderbilt (track & field)
2008 – Joseph Sykora, Alabama (golf) and Kristen Hastrup, Auburn (swimming & diving)
2009 – Bram ten Berge, Ole Miss (tennis) and Christine Magnuson, Tennessee (swimming & diving)
2010 – Jordan Anderson, Auburn (swimming & diving) and Phoebe Wright, Tennessee (track & field)
2011 – Dan Mazzaferro, Auburn (swimming & diving) and Erica Meissner, Auburn (swimming & diving)
2012 – Michael Roth, South Carolina (baseball) and Wendy Trott, Georgia (swimming & diving)
2013 – Barrett Jones, Alabama (football) and Chelsea Oswald, Kentucky (track & field/cross country)
2014 – Cory Whitsett, Alabama (golf) and Shannon Vreeland, Georgia (swimming)
2015 – Nathanael Franks, Arkansas (track & field) and Maddie Locus, Georgia (swimming)
2016 – Forrest Gamble, Ole Miss (golf) and Haylie McCleney, Alabama (softball)
2017 – Anton McKee, Alabama (swimming) and Sarah Gibson, Texas A&M (swimming)
2018 – Parker Henry, Tennessee (football) and Kelly Quinn, LSU (volleyball)
Story courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics