Four months after completing his basketball career at Southwestern Illinois College, the honors keep rolling in for Devron Bostick.
Bostick, the National Junior College Athletic Association Player of the Year, has been honored as the 2008 David Rowlands Male Student Athlete of the Year.
A native of Racine, Wis., where he led Racine St. Catherines to back-to-back state titles, Bostick was a two-time All-American and a two-time Region 24 Player of the Year while attending SWIC.
Bostick averaged 18.2 points, five rebounds and 3.2 assists per game for the Blue Storm, which won 28 games and was ranked as high as fourth in the NJCAA Division I poll during the 2007-08 season.
Now attending the University of Minnesota, where he will play for the Golden Gophers beginning this fall, Bostick was excited when he got the news.
"It's a very high honor and I feel very privileged to have won it," Bostick said. "We had a very good season and of course I could not have won this or any of the other awards without my teammates and my coaches at Southwestern (Illinois). We had a great season."
Bostick is the sixth basketball player to win the award since its inception in 1993. Other past winners include NBA star Shawn Marion.
The award is named after Rowlands, who was an active member of the NJCAA. A former baseball coach at Truman College in Chicago, Rowlands served on the NJCAA gymnastics, golf, executive and eligibility committees.
The award is given out to the student-athlete who exemplifies hard work, discipline, ethics and excellence in community college athletics.
One person who had a big impact on Bostick during the past two years was SWIC coach Jay Harrington, who watched as the 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard/forward became the nation's best junior-college player.
"Devron just had a tremendous career here," Harrington said. "But the thing that makes it even better is that in addition to becoming an excellent basketball player ... he's an even better young man. He was a very good student who walked through graduation this spring.
"To think of the thousands of young men who compete in junior-college athletics around the country, for him to be chosen as the top male athlete is just a tremendous honor for him and the school."
Bostick is attending classes at Minnesota while also working out with his new teammates.
"Things are going great and I'm happy here," Bostick said. "I'm looking forward to school starting in the fall and getting ready for basketball season."
Contact reporter Dean Criddle at 239-2665 or dcriddle@bnd.com.
