ST. LOUIS – Drake University men's tennis player Alen Salibasic has been selected as the male recipient of the Missouri Valley Conference's Dr. Charlotte West Scholar-Athlete Award, MVC Commissioner Doug Elgin announced on Thursday.
The Missouri Valley Conference Faculty Athletics Representatives Committee selected Salibasic from a field of league student-athletes who met the award criteria, including academic achievement, athletics excellence and service and leadership. Kayln Harker of Southern Illinois was named the female recipient.
Salibasic, a senior from Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is an international business and finance major and maintained a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA. He finished the 2015 season with a 25-10 singles record after falling to No. 13 Nicolas Alvarez of Duke in the first round of the NCAA Men's Tennis Singles Championship. This past spring he received the NCAA Elite 89 award for the second straight year for the 2015 NCAA Division I Men's Tennis Championship. The Elite 89 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA's championships. CoSIDA today announced that Salibasic had earned a spot on the Capital One Academic All-America® Division I Men's At-Large Team.
Salibasic concluded his standout career with an impressive 111-38 record, and led Drake to four NCAA Tournament appearances, four regular season Missouri Valley Conference championships and three MVC Tournament titles. He was named the MVC Player of the Year in 2014 and 2015 and claimed the MVC Individual Singles crown in 2013. He has garnered the MVC Elite 18 award the last three seasons.
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.
