Asheville's Blanton Gillespie Voted 2018-19 Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (www.BigSouthSports.com) – UNC Asheville men’s cross country/track & field athlete Blanton Gillespie (Shelby, N.C.) has been voted the 2018-19 Big South Conference Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year, it was announced today by the league office. The Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year is voted on by the Big South Sports Information Directors from a pool of each sport’s Scholar-Athlete winner announced during the regular-season.
Gillespie is Asheville’s second consecutive recipient of the Big South Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year award and third overall honoree. The Big South Scholar-Athlete of the Year this past season in men’s cross country, men’s indoor track & field and men’s outdoor track & field, Gillespie was voted a First-Team CoSIDA Academic All-American, finished 14th at the 2018 UNC Asheville Cross Country Invitational and secured a fourth-place finish in the javelin at the Don McGarey Invite. He graduated in May with a 3.996 GPA in Chemistry and was UNC Asheville’s 2019 Valedictorian, where he received the Manly E. Wright Award for Scholarship, which is presented to the graduate who ranks first in scholarship. Gillespie closed out his academic career as a four-time Big South Scholar-Athlete of the Year selection, and was a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-District® Men's Track & Field/Cross Country District 3 Team honoree (2018 & 2019). Gillespie had seven semesters on the Chancellor’s List, was a Goldwater Scholar, was a two-time NASA NCSpace Grant summer scholar, a Mission Health Scholar and scored in the 99th percentile on the MCAT.
In the voting, Gillespie finished with 46 points, ahead of Campbell tennis player Dustin Werner (40 points) and Kennesaw State football player Chandler Burks (29 points).