LSU student-athletes Skylar Mays and Sydney Mukes were recently honored by LSU’s Black Faculty and Staff Caucus at their annual awards presentation.
Mays, who finished his third year with the LSU Basketball team, and Mukes, who has also earned three letters with the LSU Volleyball program, were named the recipients of the Jesse Owens Student Award for the highest GPA by undergraduate student-athletes.
The award goes to a junior or senior student-athlete with the highest grade point average, most hours earned at LSU, and not a recipient of another special award.
The award is named in honor of the internationally known track athlete and trailblazer Jesse Owens, who attended the Olympics in Berlin in 1936 and won multiple gold medals during Adolf Hitler’s reign in Germany.
Mays, who is a kinesiology pre-med major, was named a second-team COSIDA Academic All-America and currently has a 4.008 GPA. Mukes has a 3.797 GPA and is concentrating in human resource education. Mays was honored with the award last year and this is the second year that LSU volleyball has had a honoree as Milan Stokes was named as a recipient.
The awards were presented to the pair by Dr. LaKeitha Poole, Director, Sports Psychology and Counseling Services and the Chair of the 2019 Black Scholars Award Program selection subcomittee; and, Dr. Dereck Rovaris, Vice Provost of the LSU Office of Diversity.