BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The conference office announced that LSU volleyball’s Jill Bohnet and cross country/track & field’s Jackson Martingayle are the LSU nominees for the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship.
The H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship has been presented by the Southeastern Conference since 1986 to the league’s top male and female scholar-athletes. The Southeastern Conference will name the 2023 recipients of the H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete Post-Graduate Scholarship on May 2.
Bohnet is a two-time SEC Leadership Council member and has won numerous LSU awards, including the 2022 Bengal Belles Academic Achievement Award, the LSU President’s Alumni Scholar Award, and the LSU Distinguished Communicator Award. On the court Bohnet posted individual career-best marks in 2023 with 2.96 digs per set, 346 total digs and 14 aces as she helped the volleyball team reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017 and win their first NCAA Tournament match since 2014.
Martingayle is currently a junior majoring in Natural Resource Ecology and Management. The Virginia Beach native has collected many academic accolades in his first few years at LSU. He is a five-time SEC Academic Honor Roll member, most recently named to the 2023 Fall Honor Roll for cross country. Martingayle was also a member of LSU track & field during their 2021 National Championship team and has earned SEC Men’s Runner of the Week twice in his career.
The SEC provides the league’s male and female McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year Post-Graduate Scholarship recipients with a $20,000 post-graduate scholarship. The 26 remaining male and female finalists for the award will also receive a $10,000 post-graduate scholarship.
The award recipients are chosen by a committee of Faculty Athletics Representatives from the 14 SEC institutions and are announced in May, as well as honored by the league membership at SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla.
One of the two McWhorter Award recipients last year was LSU women’s track and field student-athlete Lisa Gunnarsson. The LSU volleyball program has one past winner of the McWhorter Award in Kelly Quinn in 2018.