ST. LOUIS -- Gabrielle (Gabi) Haack of Bradley University and Jake McCaw of Illinois State University 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 Haack and McCaw from a field of league student-athletes who met the award criteria, including academic achievement, athletics excellence and service and leadership.
2021 Dr. Charlotte West Award Winners (PDF)
Earlier this spring, Haack became the first Academic All-District selection for BU Women's Basketball since 2009-10 in addition becoming just the fourth Brave to take home first-team all-district honors. Haack is an elementary education major with a 3.81 cumulative grade point average. The only three-time First-Team All-Missouri Valley Conference honoree in Bradley Women's Basketball history, Haack was named MVC Tournament Most Outstanding Player after leading the Braves to the first Valley Tournament title and NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.
Haack was one of 30 national candidates for the Senior CLASS Award in 2020-21 and has started a school record 109 consecutive games dating back to her freshman year. She is second in career scoring at Bradley with 1,640 career points, in addition to ranking second in MVC history with 283 career three-pointers and is the only player in MVC history to hit 60 or more three-pointers in four different seasons. A two-time First-Team MVC Scholar-Athlete pick during her career, Haack was a Second-Team Valley Scholar-Athlete as a sophomore and earned the MVC Good Neighbor Award in the winter of 2020. In addition, she was named a NCAA Division I-AAA Scholar-Athlete as a junior. Haack closed this past season second in Bradley history in career free throws made and eighth in school history with 716 career rebounds. During her time, the Braves have posted a school record for MVC victories in a four-year stretch in addition to matching the school mark for overall wins (72) in a four-year span.
McCaw led the Redbirds in hitting this past spring with a .367 average, which included a team-high 14 doubles and a team-best 66 hits. He holds a 3.92 cumulative grade point average in Business Information Systems. He earned Illinois State University Honor Roll and MVC Honor Roll distinction all four years. The Bloomington, Ill., native was also a four-time selection to Illinois State University's Dean's List.
He has also been extremely active in extracurricular activities while at Illinois State, including organizations such as Team IMPACT, Red Cross Blood Drives, Notes to Nurses, ISU Curb Birds, ISU Thank-A-Thon, and Grand Lakes Mariners Baseball Summer Camp. McCaw was a team designee for a emerging leadership academy and has been a team captain since August 2020.
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.