As he journeys to San Antonio, Texas to receive one of the NCAA’s highest honors tonight, Central College’s Blaine Hawkins has added the loftiest individual award from the American Rivers Conference to his resume.

Hawkins, a consensus all-American football quarterback, was named Tuesday as the American Rivers Duane Schroeder Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year for the 2020-21 academic year. The award is presented to an alumnus of a conference school from the previous year. The honorees are selected from the finalists by a vote of the American Rivers faculty athletics representatives.

Hawkins will be recognized at the Honors Celebration during the NCAA Convention in Texas along with nine other exceptional former student-athletes receiving the Today’s Top 10 Award. The celebration will be streamed live via the NCAA’s YouTube channel at 5:30 p.m. at https://on.ncaa.com/Honors23.

Initiated in 1973, the award recognizes 10 former student-athletes from across all NCAA divisions for their successes on the field, in the classroom and in the community. Hawkins is only the third student-athlete from an Iowa college or university to ever receive the award. Central’s Emilie (Hanson) Brown was the first in 1996.

“Extraordinary individuals make the American Rivers Conference extraordinary,” said conference commissioner Dan Hammes. “Nebraska Wesleyan’s Reagan Janzen and Central’s Blaine Hawkins epitomize what the American Rivers Conference and NCAA Division III intercollegiate athletics is intended to represent: athletic achievement, academic excellence, character development and a commitment to community service for the advancement of others. The willingness and sacrifice necessary to become an academic and athletic all-American, Elite 90 award recipient, or Gagliardi Trophy winner, while never losing one’s perspective or sense of priority as to what’s important in life, is something to celebrate. I congratulate Reagan and Blaine on being selected by our faculty athletic representatives for the highest honor that the conference can bestow.”

Hawkins, the 2021 Gagliardi Trophy winner as the outstanding football player in Division III, graduated in 2021 with a 3.61 grade point average (4.0 scale) and a double major in economics and business management. He now serves as an associate in public finance investment banking for Piper Sandler Companies in Denver, Colorado.

Hawkins set all-divisions NCAA records in 2021 for most touchdown passes in a season (63) and for points responsible for in a season (410). He also established new Division III records for touchdown passes in one half (7) and touchdowns responsible for in a career (178).