Return
to the "POINTER VIEW"June 7, 2002
Return
to the "POINTER VIEW"
June
7, 2002
Softball star and football, track
standout grab academy's highest athletic honor
By Mike Albright
Assoc. Director, Athletic Media Relations
A softball star who guided her team to two NCAA appearances in the past three years and a football standout who also found success on the track were accorded Army’s highest athletic honor May 31 as academy officials presented Nicki Robbins and Omari Thompson with the Army Athletic Association Trophy.
The announcement of the award, signifying the top male and female athlete of the graduating class, came during West Point’s annual Awards Convocation at Eisenhower Hall, one of the headline events of the academy’s time-honored Graduation Week schedule. The Army Athletic Association Trophy is presented to the male and female cadet who have provided "the most valuable service to intercollegiate athletics during a career as a cadet."
Robbins (Seminole, Fla./Seminole H.S.) is the first softball player to capture the award since pitcher Sarah Hatton in 2000, while Thompson (Miami, Fla./Killian H.S.) is the first two-sport athlete so honored since Mark Houston (football and baseball) in 1995. The last grid standout to take home the AAA Trophy was Ron Leshinski in 1997, while Brian Gebhardt was the most recent track performer, capturing the award alongside Hatton in 2000.
For Robbins, the announcement capped an award-filled spring in which the right fielder earned the Patriot League’s "Player of the Year" citation en route to her fourth straight first-team all-league selection. She is also a four-time Mid-Atlantic Region all-star. She was the Patriot League Tournament "Most Valuable Player" after helping Army capture the league crown and the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the past three seasons. Those trips marked the program’s first postseason appearances at the Division I level.
In the postseason, the sixth-seeded Black Knights capped a 31-19-1 season with a 2-0 elimination-game defeat of Utah before bowing out of the tourney with a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Arkansas. The underdog Black Knights battled evenly with 13th-ranked Texas before ultimately losing 4-0 in the regional’s opening contest.
Robbins will depart the academy with nine career records under her belt, including marks for games played (179), batting average (.422), hits (230), home runs (17), doubles (56), runs batted in (117), at bats (545), walks (63) and total bases (363). In addition, she holds season records for hits (62 set in 1999), RBIs (34 set in 2000), doubles (18 set in 2001) and triples (7 set in 1999).
Arguably the best hitter to pass through head coach Jim Flowers’ program, Robbins became the first Army softball player to collect 200 hits, 50 doubles and 100 runs batted in, and is the second to score 100 runs (113). She topped Army in batting (.400), hits (56), runs (32), doubles (15), home runs (7), RBIs (33), total bases (92), walks (34), slugging percentage (.657) and on-base percentage (.523) as a senior.
Ranked nationally in batting and doubles all spring, Robbins lists tied for 36th in batting average (.400) and 28th in doubles per game (0.29). Robbins left her mark on the Patriot League as well, setting league career standards for doubles, slugging percentage and walks.
Thompson, meanwhile, left an indelible mark on two athletic programs at West Point, starring as an all-purpose performer on the gridiron and bolstering the track and field team’s sprint fortunes.
The Miami, Fla., product was a three-year starter and three-year letterwinner in football. This past fall he was voted to the Conference USA second team all-star squad as a return specialist. Thompson concluded his brilliant football career with a scintillating 96-yard kickoff return for a touchdown on the opening kickoff of the second half to fuel Army’s 26-17 defeat of arch-rival Navy Dec. 1. It was Thompson’s first career kickoff return for a score and gave the specialist career touchdowns via rushing, receiving, punt return and kick return.
Thompson, who started in 22 games during his career, is Army’s all-time leader in kickoff returns (83) and kickoff return yardage (1827). He ranks fourth on Army’s career all-purpose yards list (3412) and finished just 13 yards shy of third place. He topped the Black Knights in all-purpose yards as a senior (1116) and as a junior (1407), with that latter total ranking fifth on Army’s single-season chart. He also closed his three-year stint tied for eighth in career receptions (70). Buoyed by the installation of new head coach Todd Berry’s wide-open attack, Thompson snared 40 receptions as a junior and 22 more as a senior. His 40 catches in 2000 were the most by an Army player since 1980.
The speedy wide receiver also tied the academy’s single-season record for kickoff returns as a junior (37) prior to setting a new single season kickoff return yardage mark as a senior (739). In 2000, during his junior campaign, he became the first Army player since Glenn Davis in 1944 to return two punts for touchdowns in the same season.
On the track, Thompson was a six-time Patriot League champion and this spring helped the track and field squad snap a four-year losing streak to arch-rival Navy. In the winter, he won the 200-meter dash during the annual Army-Navy indoor meet.
Serving as the leadoff runner, Thompson led the Black Knights’ 4x400 relay team to consecutive titles at the Patriot League Outdoor Track and Field Championships each of the past two years. He has been named All-Patriot League in track four times, three times outdoors and once indoors.
He ran the third leg for the 4x100-meter relay team that broke the academy record en route to a second-place finish at IC4A Outdoor Championships (40.73) in 2000 and was a member of that same relay when it shattered the Patriot League’s outdoor meet record at the league championship event. He spearheaded victories in the 4x100 relay against Air Force and Navy during the 2000 outdoor season.
Robbins, a human and regional geography major, and Thompson, majoring in the American Legal System, received their diplomas during graduation festivities Saturday.