ST. LOUIS -- Becca Hittner of Drake University and C.J. May of the University of Northern Iowa have been selected as the female and male recipients, respectively, of the Missouri Valley Conference’s Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award, Valley Commissioner Doug Elgin has announced. The Missouri Valley Conference Faculty Athletics Representatives Committee selected Hittner and May from a field of league student-athletes who met the award criteria, including academic achievement, athletics excellence and service and leadership.
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This past season, Hittner was named the Jackie Stiles Missouri Valley Conference Women's Basketball Player of the Year for the third consecutive year becoming just the third MVC player to win the top award three times. Hittner led the Valley in scoring for the third-straight season averaging 18.9 points per game in 2019-20, while her career totals in several statistical categories rank among the all-time leaders in Drake and MVC history. She scored 2,133 career points, which ranks sixth at Drake and seventh in the MVC. Hittner's school-record 43.4 career three-point percentage is seventh in conference history and her 258 career three-pointers is second in school history and T-11th all-time in the Valley.
In addition to being named MVC Player of the Year for the third-straight season, Hittner collected several league and national honors in recognition for her outstanding final season as a Bulldog. She was selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-America Second Team and to the MVC Scholar-Athlete First Team. In addition, she was named to the All-MVC First Team for the fourth-straight season. Hittner is just the eighth MVC player and fourth Drake player to be picked to the All-MVC First Team four times. She was a two-time WBCA All-America Honorable Mention selection. Hittner earned a degree in marketing with a minor in data analytics, achieving a 3.97 cumulative grade point average. While at Drake, Hittner was an active volunteer, serving time in various organizations including Meals from the Heartland, Habitat for Humanity, Picnic and Play, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the American Marketing Association.
May helped the Panthers to three team titles in indoor/outdoor track while at UNI, which included an individual championship in the steeplechase at the 2017 outdoor meet. He also finished sixth at this past year's MVC Cross Country Championship. In his career at UNI May earned all-conference honors in track & field and cross country four times. An active member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, May graduated this spring with a 3.93 cumulative grade point average in computer science.
This past indoor season, May placed first with a personal best in the 1,000 meters with a time of 2:26.15 at the Hawkeye Invitational and also won the mile at the Bison Team Cup. He was runner-up finisher in the mile with a personal best time of 4:12.10 at the Meyo Invitational in February. May was active in various community service and campus activities while at UNI, including the Boys and Girls Club, MLK Day Meal Packaging and Pen Pals, and he was also a member of the St. Stephen Church Choir. May is a co-founder and Vice President of UNISEC (a cyber security student organization).
The first-ever recipient of the Honda Award of Merit in 1996 for outstanding achievement in women’s collegiate athletics, Dr. Charlotte West was a driving force for more than 40 years in the area of advancement of women’s sports. On June 30, 1998, she retired from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, after serving in the capacities of head coach, associate athletics director, interim athletics director and senior woman administrator during her 41 years with the Missouri Valley Conference-member institution. West coached five women’s sports from 1957-75 and, in 1982, was among the first group of women inducted into the SIUC Athletics Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the Missouri Valley Conference Hall of Fame in 2005 and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014. SIU named its softball stadium after West in 2003 and the NCAA named a room in its new national office building in Indianapolis in West's honor in 2012.
During her tenure at SIUC, she became the first female member of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) and later served on the organization’s board of directors. West was also a president of the Association of Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). In 1991, she was presented with the Administrator of the Year Award by the National Association of Collegiate Women Administrators. West also received the Administrator of the Year Award, given by the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association.