Central’s Cox wins NCAA scholarship

Central College

PELLA—Central College football standout Taylor Cox (Pella) has been awarded an NCAA postgraduate scholarship for his academic and athletics excellence.

Cox, a biology major with minors in chemistry, Spanish, and psychology, carries a 4.0 grade point average. He will receive $7,500 for postgraduate study and is one of just 29 male scholarship recipients for the fall 2015 season. He will be attending the University of Iowa in the fall to pursue a doctorate in medicine.

Central has had 22 NCAA postgraduate scholarship winners since 1970, when former NFL star Vern Den Herder was honored. Cox is the second Dutch athlete to receive the scholarship in the last year as former track and field athlete Spencer Hammack was honored in the spring of 2015.

There were 58 men’s and women’s fall sport recipients selected. The NCAA awards 174 postgraduate scholarships annually. To be eligible for selection, a student-athlete must have a cumulative grade point average of 3.2 or above, have performed with distinction in athletics, and behaved—both on and off the field—in a manner that brought credit to the student-athlete, the institution and intercollegiate athletics.

A four-year letterwinner, Cox completed a decorated career at Central last fall. Cox averaged 30.3 yards on 14 kick returns in 2015 and 14.5 yards on 17 punt returns, earning him a spot on the all-Iowa Conference second team as a return specialist. He was a three-time academic all-conference pick and a 2015 selection to the CoSida Academic all-District team. He was a co-captain in 2015 and was chosen as the winner of the Mentink Award (leadership on and off the field) by his teammates following the season.

Cox joins a men’s soccer player from Simpson as the only Iowa Conference honorees. A future member of the Iowa Conference, Nebraska Wesleyan University, had two athletes chosen.