Sports odds and ends
The Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) recently announced its nominees for the NCAA Woman of the Year and the Division III Commissioners Association (DIIICA) Student-Athlete of the Year Awards.
St. Catherine’s Jaycee Rhodes is the only Black student-athlete nominee from the conference for the two awards. The St. Paul native, along with Bethel’s Annessa Ihde, is the MIAC nominee for the NCAA award, and Rhodes, Ihde, and St. Olaf’s Will Kelly have also been nominated for the DIICA honors.
Rhodes was a four-time All-MIAC honoree in women’s golf and helped St. Catherine to three NCAA Championship appearances during her undergraduate career at St. Kate’s. She graduated in May with a double major in business administration and sales management.
She is now in graduate school and will compete this upcoming season in her fifth and final year of eligibility.
As the conference’s only Black golfer, Rhodes was a three-time Academic All-MIAC honoree, four-time WGCA All-American Scholar, and 2024 Academic All-District honors from College Sports Communicators.
Rhodes, the 2020-21 MIAC rookie of the year and two-time WGCA All-Region scholar, is also very active and involved in campus and off-campus activities.
She is her school’s chapter president for Chi Alpha Sigma, the National College Athlete Honor Society, has spent two years on the Wildcat Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, and has been a selected participant in two NCAA programs.
Rhodes also volunteers at the Fairway Foundation to teach youth golfers and with Feed My Starving Children and St. Kate’s food shelf.
“Each day where I have felt overwhelmed, with far too much on my plate, pushed me to be a well-rounded leader,” Rhodes said in a released statement.
Associate Commissioner BJ Pickard told the MSR on Rhodes, “She is a great representative for the MIAC.”
The DIIICA awards will be announced later in August.
The NCAA award selection committee will determine the top three nominees from each division. The nine finalists will be announced in November, and the overall winner will be announced at the NCAA Convention in Nashville in January 2025.