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Grand Canyon University Athletics
Boling wins WAC Stan Bates Award
7/17/2018 9:10:00 AM | Softball, Paul Coro
Softball star honored as top female student-athlete
 For the past four years, Bianca Boling's hard work largely has been unseen and unheralded.
Her starting role on the Grand Canyon softball team was always at the forefront, but even more of her time was consumed with the unseen work it took to graduate in psychology with a 3.96 grade point average, collaborate on published research as an undergraduate and coordinate and contribute community service.
The WAC recognized Boling's efforts on Tuesday by naming her a winner of the Stan Bates Award, which annually honors the conference's top male and female student-athletes for achievements in sports, academics and community involvement. The award includes a $3,000 postgraduate scholarship, which Boling will apply toward a Midwestern University graduate/doctorate program in clinical psychology that she is starting next month.
"Almost every day," Boling said of wondering if her efforts were noticed. "I knew what my end goals were. I knew what I was doing when it was academically based. But a lot of that made me wonder, 'What is this going for?' Now, just going through all of the application processes for scholarships, I can definitely see the extracurricular plays a huge part in the reason that I'm being selected or even nominated."
Boling was a four-year softball standout, finishing her career by being selected to the All-WAC first team, hitting .409 in WAC play (fourth best in the conference) and setting a WAC Softball Tournament record for home runs (four). But her accomplishments at GCU were greater outside the lines. Her academic career ended with her being named the College of Humanities and Social Sciences' outstanding senior and GCU's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Boling said she was constantly encouraged and exposed to campus and community opportunities by her sister, Breanna Naegeli, the assistant dean of GCU Honors College.
"We had 1,600 students in the program last year, and she still stands out as someone who has invested an unbelievable amount of time in her academics," Naegeli said. "People often overlook all she has accomplished on the academic side. They knew her and branded her as an athlete, so they always took notice of what she did on the field. Because of that success, they just pushed to the side what else she had been involved in and kind of overlooked what she's doing that nobody expects of her. I think a lot of what she has done has been overshadowed by her athletic career. At the end of the day, it has been really remarkable what she has squeezed into her four years at GCU."
Beyond academics, Boling was just as driven as the community service coordinator for softball, which gave more community service hours than any GCU team. She spearheaded the team's two-day trip to Mexico to build a house for a family in need.
She credited softball head coach Ann Pierson for shaping her with responsibilities and demanding her time management. She also thanks L.O.P.E.S. for Life coordinator Kaeman Mitchell, who assisted her scholarship applications and shared a two-hour office session to pick a graduate school.
As with the Kevin and Greta Warren Postgraduate Athletic Scholarship, which Boling won in April, the Stan Bates Award is a helpful contribution to an expensive postgraduate undertaking. It's also another humbling undergraduate honor.
"It's definitely more meaningful because there are so many more applicants and competitors that I was going against in the conference," Boling said.
Utah Valley distance runner Tyson Lambert is this year's male recipient of the Stan Bates Award, which is named for the former WAC commissioner.
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Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
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Her starting role on the Grand Canyon softball team was always at the forefront, but even more of her time was consumed with the unseen work it took to graduate in psychology with a 3.96 grade point average, collaborate on published research as an undergraduate and coordinate and contribute community service.
The WAC recognized Boling's efforts on Tuesday by naming her a winner of the Stan Bates Award, which annually honors the conference's top male and female student-athletes for achievements in sports, academics and community involvement. The award includes a $3,000 postgraduate scholarship, which Boling will apply toward a Midwestern University graduate/doctorate program in clinical psychology that she is starting next month.
"Almost every day," Boling said of wondering if her efforts were noticed. "I knew what my end goals were. I knew what I was doing when it was academically based. But a lot of that made me wonder, 'What is this going for?' Now, just going through all of the application processes for scholarships, I can definitely see the extracurricular plays a huge part in the reason that I'm being selected or even nominated."
Boling was a four-year softball standout, finishing her career by being selected to the All-WAC first team, hitting .409 in WAC play (fourth best in the conference) and setting a WAC Softball Tournament record for home runs (four). But her accomplishments at GCU were greater outside the lines. Her academic career ended with her being named the College of Humanities and Social Sciences' outstanding senior and GCU's Female Scholar-Athlete of the Year.
Boling said she was constantly encouraged and exposed to campus and community opportunities by her sister, Breanna Naegeli, the assistant dean of GCU Honors College.
"We had 1,600 students in the program last year, and she still stands out as someone who has invested an unbelievable amount of time in her academics," Naegeli said. "People often overlook all she has accomplished on the academic side. They knew her and branded her as an athlete, so they always took notice of what she did on the field. Because of that success, they just pushed to the side what else she had been involved in and kind of overlooked what she's doing that nobody expects of her. I think a lot of what she has done has been overshadowed by her athletic career. At the end of the day, it has been really remarkable what she has squeezed into her four years at GCU."
Beyond academics, Boling was just as driven as the community service coordinator for softball, which gave more community service hours than any GCU team. She spearheaded the team's two-day trip to Mexico to build a house for a family in need.
She credited softball head coach Ann Pierson for shaping her with responsibilities and demanding her time management. She also thanks L.O.P.E.S. for Life coordinator Kaeman Mitchell, who assisted her scholarship applications and shared a two-hour office session to pick a graduate school.
As with the Kevin and Greta Warren Postgraduate Athletic Scholarship, which Boling won in April, the Stan Bates Award is a helpful contribution to an expensive postgraduate undertaking. It's also another humbling undergraduate honor.
"It's definitely more meaningful because there are so many more applicants and competitors that I was going against in the conference," Boling said.
Utah Valley distance runner Tyson Lambert is this year's male recipient of the Stan Bates Award, which is named for the former WAC commissioner.
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Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.
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