Oregon quarterback Dennis Dixon won one of the most illustrious awards the NCAA can present. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that big bronze statue of a football player throwing a stiff arm – however, given the circumstances, what he won is just as important as a Heisman Trophy.
“Dixon the Recipient of NCAA’s Top Honor,” read the news release e-mail from the athletic department in my inbox over break. Curious, I clicked through. Dixon was one of the NCAA’s Top VIII Award winners this year, which probably means very little to the average Duck fan.
As the award’s name implies, Dixon was selected as one of the NCAA’s top eight student athletes of 2007 – an prize awarded for athletic achievement as well as academics and personal character. Four other Ducks have won it, as recently as 1995.
OK, so Dixon gets recognized – again – for his academic prowess. But take a look at the other athletes chosen for this year’s award: a Stanford women’s soccer player, a Georgia Tech men’s golfer, a Nebraska volleyball player, a Stanford men’s swimmer, a women’s track and basketball athlete from Division III Calvin College, a women’s diver from Division II Clarion, and a women’s cross country and track runner from Willamette University in Salem.
What you don’t see are any other athletes from the two major revenue-generating college sports, football and men’s basketball. In addition, the only women’s basketball player is from a D-III school.
And the NCAA doesn’t throw the major sports a bone by granting them a single spot each year; in 2005 there were no men’s basketball or football players, where as in 2004 quarterbacks Craig Krenzel of Ohio State and Eli Manning of Ole Miss both won the award. Dixon earned the achievement (as well as other academic recognitions) just as much as he earned finalist nominations for the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien Awards.
In a time where the phrase “student athlete” receives a roll of the eyes regarding some sports, Dixon’s achievement stands out. Consider that Oregon football is 38 points below the NCAA men’s average Academic Progress Rate – a score of 912 versus the average 950.
Consider that the men’s basketball team is also breaking the stereotypes. That they scored a 974, more than 60 points higher than the football team and almost 50 points higher than the sport’s NCAA average. Something they’re so proud of, they’re using it as their promotion angle this year.
The Oregon Athletics billboard as you cross the Ferry Street Bridge heading toward Coburg Road features men’s players, including starting seniors Malik Hairston, Maarty Leunen, and Bryce Taylor, all of whom have graduated or are on track to graduate. The same sign features prominently next to Interstate 5 in Portland just south of the Rose Garden.
That Oregon has student athletes it can be proud of is nothing new; that they’re from the revenue-generating sports is both surprising and heartening. Too bad Dixon won an award that nobody really cared about, because it shows the character that most only see on the gridiron.
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