Athletics Department | 4/30/2026 10:00:00 AM

BURNSVILLE, Minn. -- The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) announced its Honor Student-Athlete Award recipients for the 2025-26 season. Seniors Luzmary Diaz Castillo and Jack Strand were honored from Minnesota State Moorhead. Strand also earned the prestigious Dr. William Britton Scholar-Athlete Award for Academic Excellence. 

The Britton Scholar-Athlete Award for Academic Excellence, in its 42nd year, recognizes the NSIC's top male student-athlete. The Britton Award was created in 1985 in honor of Dr. William Britton, a longtime faculty representative at Bemidji State University who served on the Athletic Board of Control of the Northern Intercollegiate Conference for 25 years. Britton retired from BSU in 1982 and passed away in March of 2019. Strand is MSUM's first recipient of the Britton Award since 2000 (Adam Vossen) and is just the third in the history of the award (Bart Johnson, 1999 - Jeff Welder, 1992). Strand will be recognized Tuesday, July 7 at the NSIC Hall of Fame Banquet in Bloomington, Minnesota and will each receive a $3,000 post-graduate scholarship.

Strand, a Bloomer, Wis., native is an engineering physics major who holds a cumulative grade point average of 3.87 in his academic career. Diaz Castillo, a native of Maracay, Venezuela, bolsters an impressive 3.98 cumulative GPA as an integrated advertising and public relations major at MSUM. 

The member institutions of the NSIC nominate one male and one female student-athlete for the Britton and Kelly Awards. The nominees must meet the following criteria: a grade point average of 3.5 or better (on a 4.0 scale); evidence of academic excellence beyond the minimum grade point average (scholarship prizes and other academic recognition), evidence of participation in the life of the institution, and evidence of participation in at least two-thirds of the varsity events of the individual's primary sport. The award is voted on by the NSIC Faculty Athletic Representatives.