CCIW announces 2021-22 Merle Chapman Leadership Award Recipients

The College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin (CCIW) announced the Merle Chapman Leadership Award recipients on Wednesday.

This award is named after the former Millikin Athletics Director and the CCIW's second commissioner, who served in that capacity from 1997-2002. The award identifies the student-athletes that best exemplify the traits that Chapman displayed and encouraged during his three-plus decades of service as teacher, coach and mentor to the athletes, coaches and administrators of the CCIW. Those traits are loyalty, enthusiasm, leadership, sportsmanship, and a commitment to academic, athletic and personal excellence.

Each CCIW institution selects one male and one female from their Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) who participates in a CCIW-sponsored sport.

Millikin's honorees are junior women's basketball player Miranda Fox (Effingham, H.S.), a Communication major and senior cross country and track athlete Ben Kuxmann (Bourbonnais, Bradley Bourbonnais H.S.), an English (Secondary Teaching) major. In addition to being leaders on their respective teams both hold leadership roles on the Millikin campus. Fox, a starter for the Big Blue, received this year's CCIW Elite 25 Award for having the highest grade point average from teams playing in the CCIW Women's Basketball Tournament Championship game. Kuxmann was named to the 2020-21 Academic All-America Men's Track & Field/Cross Country Second Team, selected by CoSIDA. He earned All-American honors at the 2022 NCAA Division III Indoor Track and Field Championships with a third place finish in the 800 Meters. He was third in the 2021 NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships in the 800 Meters as well.