COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Saint John's University senior student-athletes Mack Farley (Lakeville, Minn./South) and Carter Hanson (Blue Earth, Minn.) were co-winners of the 2017 Fr. Wilfred Theisen Student-Athlete of the Year Award, sponsored by the J-Club, at the SJU Senior Banquet held April 23.
Theisen taught physics at SJU for 47 years and was named professor emeritus at his retirement in 2005. He is a former SJU faculty representative to the MIAC and continues as treasurer of the J-Club. The award was first presented in 2013.
Mack Farley
A finalist for the 2017 Golf Coaches' Association of America (GCAA) Byron Nelson Award and a semifinalist for the 2017 Division III Jack Nicklaus Award, given to the national player of the year, Farley received 2016 GCAA All-Region honors and earned All-MIAC distinction last fall. He has a 74.9 scoring average in 22 rounds in 2016-17 and a 75.6 career average (71 rounds) with three tournament wins.
An accounting and economics double-major with a 3.96 GPA, Farley was a College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) At-Large Academic All-American, GCAA All-America Scholar and GCAA All-Central Region honoree last spring. He will likely earn his third Academic All-MIAC honor (minimum 3.5 GPA) in June.
Farley's community efforts began his freshman year as a volunteer with Feed My Starving Children, assisting in preparing and packaging meals for those fighting hunger. As a sophomore, Farley volunteered with Habitat for Humanity to create a marketing plan to create awareness within the local community.
After serving as a Kids Fighting Hunger volunteer preparing meals for those in need in fall 2015, Farley founded and directed the Saint John's Kids Fighting Hunger Student Service Project. He brought Kids Fighting Hunger to the SJU campus and was responsible for raising money from local sponsors and campus organizations to purchase meal ingredients, and recruited SJU student-athletes to volunteer as meal packers. In total, $6,500 was raised and over 45,000 meals were packed Malawi or Sierra Leone in 2016.
Farley continued his work this year as director of the second annual Saint John's Kids Fighting Hunger Student Service Project, which nearly doubled its success from the previous year on March 19. The project included 320 volunteers from organizations such as Knights of Columbus, Granite City Rotary Club, Campus Ministry and SJU Senate. Overall, Farley's work led the efforts to raise over $12,000 that produced over 82,000 meals for Somalia and local food shelves.
Carter Hanson
An Associated Press Little All-America first-team and D3football.com All-America third-team honoree in 2016, Hanson won the 2016 Gagliardi Trophy as the most outstanding football player in NCAA Division III. Given annually since 1993 and sponsored by Jostens and the J-Club of Saint John's, the Gagliardi Trophy recognizes excellence in athletics, academics and community service.
Hanson is the second defensive player to win the Gagliardi Trophy (Wesley defensive back Rocky Myers in 2004) and is the third recipient in SJU history: wide receivers Chris Palmer '96 in 1995 and Blake Elliott '03 in 2003.
Hanson will also receive the 2017 Stein-Fallon Scholar-Athlete Award from the Minnesota chapter of the National Football Foundation (NFF) at the 10th annual Minnesota Football Awards, presented by the Minnesota Vikings, this Sunday, May 7, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
A three-time All-MIAC first-team and D3football.com All-West Region honoree, Hanson led the team with 74 tackles (29 solo), including eight for a loss, three interceptions, one quarterback sack and one forced fumble in 2016. He also posted a team-best 10 passes defensed and seven pass breakups. The four-year starter finished fifth in school history with 316 total tackles, sixth in solo tackles (148) and eighth in assisted tackles (168).
He was named a CoSIDA Academic All-American for the second straight season and earned an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as one of the 12 finalists for the William V. Campbell Trophy in 2016.
In the community, Hanson is the director of corporate sponsorship for Square One, which is an on-campus organization that seeks to create lasting micro-business ventures in developing countries. As part of Square One, Hanson traveled to Haiti for 10 days in January 2016 to help establish a sustainable food source for the chicken coop business that was created in 2014.
He also volunteered with Kids Against Hunger the past two years and helped the SJU football team raise money for Tackle Cancer and the "Up Till Dawn" campaign, collecting donations for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in fall 2015. He served as a basketball official for a local Special Olympics tournament in February 2016 and worked with Meridian, a bat-making company, as a member of the CSB/SJU Marketing Club to help market its products in fall 2015.
Hanson has been a two-year member of SJU's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), which has conducted multiple campus cleanups, and serves as SJU's SAAC president for the 2016-17 school year. He is also a member of SJU's Student Conduct Board, is on the advisory board for the Society for the Advancement of Management and serves as the chair of SJU's Senior Class Committee.
Past Fr. Wilfred Theisen Student-Athlete of the Year Award Recipients
2013 – Dennis Granath '13 (Golf)
2014 – Michael Coborn '14 (Soccer)
2015 – J.T. Ford '15 (Football)
2016 – Alex Niederloh '16 (Soccer)/Sam Sura '16 (Football)
2017 – Mack Farley '17 (Golf)/Carter Hanson '17 (Football)
