MELBOURNE, Fla. – Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University men’s basketball athlete Elijah Jenkins is awarded the Sunshine State Conference’s Male Scholar-Athlete of the Year honor. The basketball team captain is pursuing both a Bachelor’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s of Business Administration. The senior holds a 3.975-grade point average and recently completed minors in Computer Science and Applied Mathematics.
Voting for the award is conducted among Athletic Directors, Senior Woman Administrators, Athletic Communication Directors, and Faculty Athletic Representatives from the 11 SSC member institutions.
Jenkins, a native of Atlanta, was named to Embry-Riddle’s College of Engineering’s Dean's List in addition to being selected as the college’s 2021 Outstanding Undergraduate Student of the Year. The guard also received the Steve and Vicky Ridder Scholarship (ERAU’s Male Student-Athlete of the Year) and the university’s Eagles of Excellence scholarship. CoSIDA once again named him an Academic All-American, placing him on the Second Team this past year following Third Team honors in 2019-20. With selections in 2020-21, he’s now a four-time SSC Commissioner Honor Roll, two-time NABC Honors Court, and two-time CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree
In service to his community, Jenkins has volunteered with the Special Olympics, Children’s Miracle Network Dance Marathon, Calvary Kid’s Marketplace, American Heart Association Heart Walk, Bike for Multiple Sclerosis, Port Orange Parks and Recreation Trunk or Treat, along with multiple beach and campus clean-ups. His basketball skills and IQ have been put to work with various basketball camps and clinics and as a speaker at numerous elementary schools on behalf of ERAU men’s basketball. On-campus, he helped initiate the Eagle Study Connection, a service to help student-athletes receive help with academics, including one-on-one tutoring with study mentors.
Since joining the Blue and Gold, Jenkins has been a constant in the Eagle backcourt, averaging 28.2 minutes per game over three seasons. In his last season of competition in 2019-20, Jenkins helped lead the Eagles to their first postseason appearance as an NCAA squad, averaging 29.1 minutes per contest, making 86 three-pointers at a 41.5 percent clip, and averaging 13.4 points per game for Embry-Riddle. His 86 made three-pointers were the seventh-highest single-season total in school history as the Eagles led NCAA II in made triples per game (13.4). Jenkins had 68 assists as a junior, putting him at 199 for his career, the most during ERAU's SSC era. Jenkins is tied for seventh all-time in Embry-Riddle's record book with 196 made three-pointers while playing the least number of games as anyone else in the top 10.
Jenkins is the first Embry-Riddle student-athlete to win an SSC End-of-the-Year award since the Eagles became full members in 2017-18. He is the fifth men's basketball athlete honored and the first in nine years. Previous men's basketball athletes to win the award are Shanaka Weerasooriya, Florida Southern (1995-96); Jeff Kliewer, Eckerd (1998-99); Mike Veith, Rollins (2001-02); Marcus Ruh, Saint Leo (2012-13).
Complete Listing: SSC Scholar-Athletes of the Year