Stiles Named Athlete of Year

Basketball star Jackie Stiles of Southwest Missouri State made her sport an 11-time winner in the 25-year history of the women’s Collegiate Athlete of the Year award here Monday night.

Stiles, the NCAA scoring leader now playing professionally for Portland of the WNBA, shared the evening’s honors with UCLA’s legendary track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who was named the top winner of the award for the last 25 years. Her honor had been previously announced; Stiles’ was announced Monday night at a dinner here, where she received the Honda-Broderick Cup.

Stiles was selected in a vote involving more than 900 member NCAA schools. Her competition for the award included honorees in other sports: Jen Adams, lacrosse, Maryland; Mohini Bhardwaj, gymnastics, UCLA; Greichaly Cepero, volleyball, Nebraska; Marina DeGiacomo, field hockey, Old Dominion; Jennie Finch, softball, Arizona (and La Mirada); Meredith Florance, soccer, North Carolina; Laura Granville, tennis, Stanford; Kara Grgas-Wheeler, cross country, Colorado; Candy Hannemann, golf, Duke; Misty Hyman, swimming, Stanford; Brenda Taylor, track, Harvard.

Also honored were swimmer Jessica Martin of Truman State as Division II athlete of the year; basketball player Tasha Rodgers of Washington University of St. Louis in Division III, and swimmer Kendra Berner of Davidson, N.C., College, who won the Inspiration Award for competing with a congenital deformation of her right hand and still managing to turn in the school’s second-fastest ever 50-meter race of 24.86 seconds.

Stiles, a 5-foot-8 guard, scored 3,398 points in her career, had a game high of 49 points in a career in which she shot nearly 57% from the field and led her team to a spot in this year’s Final Four.