Evans Named SEC Brad Davis Community Service Leader of the Year

May 3, 2017

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – University of South Carolina track & field senior Maya Evans has been named the Southeastern Conference’s 2017 Brad Davis Community Service Leader of the Year, commissioner Greg Sankey announced Wednesday. Evans is the female recipient of the award, and she is joined by the male honoree, Tennessee baseball student-athlete Eric Freeman.

Evans and Freeman were chosen by a committee of Faculty Athletics Representatives from SEC universities. Each will receive a $10,000 post-graduate scholarship, provided by the SEC.

Evans is the sixth Gamecock in history to win the SEC’s Community Service Award. She joins men’s basketball alumni BJ McKie (1999) and Michael Boynton (2004), women’s diving alumna Holly Hodges (2005), football alumnus William Brown (2008) and women’s basketball alumna Brionna Dickerson (2009) as Gamecocks honored by the conference for their efforts in the community.

“Maya Evans and Eric Freeman live the complete SEC student-athlete experience by excelling not only in competition and the classroom, but also by contributing to their communities,” Sankey said. “These young people represent all that can be achieved by student-athletes in the Southeastern Conference and I congratulate them on their outstanding collegiate careers and their commitment to making their world a better place.”

“The very day I went to visit Maya in high school, she was involved in a community service project. It was then that I knew what an impact Maya was having on her hometown of Wilson, N.C., and what kind of impact she would have on the world,” Carolina head coach Curtis Frye said. “She’s an individual who is motivated to do good. She is a leader amongst her peers; she draws our team closer and motivates them to give back in their own ways. She is very deserving of this award, and I am thrilled for her.”

Evans has over 700 hours of community service experience collected during her career as a Gamecock student-athlete. The Wilson, N.C., native is a regular volunteer at the Wesley Shelter for Domestic Violence in her hometown, where she has performed a variety of duties. At Wesley, Evans has managed donations, assisted the Hispanic Outreach Program, taught life skills management classes, helped with housekeeping and led English-Spanish tutoring sessions, among other activities. Her relationship with the shelter stretches back to her time as a high school student.

Evans has volunteered through a number of outlets during her time as a Gamecock. She spent a summer in Costa Rica through the uVolunteer Abroad program, tutoring impoverished children in 2016. She managed the Midlands Reading Consortium, a United Way tutoring program designed to improve the language skills of Richland One School District students. She has served her fellow Carolina students as both a Diversity Peer Educator and the Community Service Chair of the Multicultural Student Outreach Team.

Already well-known for her impact on the Columbia community and abroad, Evans is a three-time SEC Community Service Team selection and earned the track & field team’s Humanitarian Award in 2016. She was given the Gulf South Summit Award for Outstanding Student Contributions to Service-Learning in Higher Education in 2016 and was the USC President’s Volunteer Award silver medalist in 2015. She has served on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee each of the last two seasons.

Athletically, Evans has been a versatile member of the Gamecock roster for the past four seasons. A middle distance specialist capable of stretching into longer races, Evans is a member of nine different relay teams that have achieved top-10 marks in Carolina’s all-time record book. This season, Evans has contributed to the 4x800m squad that logged the sixth-fastest indoor time in school history at the Armory Invitational. She was also on the 4x800m quartet that won the race at the Weems Baskin Invitational with the 10th-best outdoor mark in the Gamecock records.

Evans is also a star in the classroom, where she majors in public health and carries a 3.801 cumulative GPA. She is a student in the University of South Carolina Honors College, and she is a both a McKissick Scholar and Alpha Lambda Delta Honors Society member. Evans is a three-time SEC Academic Honor Roll selection and a 2016 USTFCCCA All-Academic Team honoree, and she has helped the Carolina team to USTFCCCA All-Academic distinctions in each of the last three seasons.

The SEC Community Service Post-Graduate Scholarship is named for former Associate Commissioner Brad Davis. Davis succumbed to cancer on March 2, 2006. He had been a member of the SEC staff since 1988, first serving as an assistant commissioner until 1994 when he was promoted to associate commissioner.

UP NEXT FOR THE GAMECOCKS

Evans and the Gamecocks host the 2017 SEC Championship next week at Sheila & Morris Cregger Track. The event runs May 11-13, and tickets are available here.