Magee, Thompson named SoCon Athletes of the Year
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – Wofford College senior men’s basketball guard Fletcher Magee and Mercer University women’s senior basketball forward Amanda Thompson have been named the 2019 Southern Conference Male and Female Athletes of the Year, the league announced Tuesday.
Magee becomes just the third Terrier to claim the honor since Wofford joined the league in 1997 and the school’s first basketball player, joining football players Matt Nelson (2003-04) and Eric Breitenstein (2012-13).
The Orlando, Florida, native averaged 20.3 points and 4.5 3-pointers per game and rewrote the SoCon and NCAA record books as a senior in 2018-19, hitting 158 3-pointers, tied for second-most in a season in NCAA Division I history. With seven 3-pointers in the Terriers’ 84-68 win over Seton Hall in the NCAA tournament first round, Magee became the NCAA Division I career leader with 509. Named the SoCon Player of the Year by the league’s coaches and media, Magee also won the Lou Henson Award, given annually to the nation’s top mid-major player. He was a two-time SoCon player of the week and two-time player of the month and became the first player to be named the USBWA Oscar Robertson Player of the Week this season. He earned All-America honorable mention from the Associated Press and spots on the Lou Henson Award and Lute Olson Award (top Division I player) All-America teams.
Magee, who will play in the NBA Summer League with the Milwaukee Bucks, led the Terriers to a school-record 30 wins that included an undefeated run through the SoCon regular season (18-0). Wofford won the league’s regular-season and tournament titles in the same season for the first time since 2014-15, with Magee earning MVP honors at the Ingles Southern Conference Championship presented by General Shale. In addition to helping the seventh-seeded Terriers to their first-ever NCAA tournament win and the SoCon’s highest NCAA seed since 1979, Magee led Wofford to its first-ever Associated Press Top 25 ranking, as the squad entered at No. 24 on Feb. 24 and finished the season ranked No. 19. Wofford finished No. 18 in the USA Today Coaches Top 25, appearing in the final five polls.
Magee, who graduated in May with a degree in sociology, wrapped up his career with 2,516 points, good for fifth in SoCon history, and a league-record 90.8 free-throw percentage, which ranks seventh in DI history. His 43.5 career 3-point field-goal percentage ranked eighth in SoCon history.
In the community, Magee participated in numerous events at local elementary schools, including the annual walk-to-school day at Pine Street Elementary.
Thompson becomes just the third Bear ever to earn the Athlete of the Year award, though she is the second female in two years to take home the award as former teammate Kahlia Lawrence was honored in 2017-18. The 2018-19 coaches’ SoCon Player of the Year, Thompson led Mercer to its fourth consecutive regular-season title and its second straight SoCon tournament title.
The Hayesville, North Carolina, native averaged 13.3 points and a league-high 10.6 rebounds per game as a senior, tallying 16 doubles-doubles and pulling down a career-high 18 rebounds against Howard. She scored in double digits in 24 of the 33 contests on the season, highlighted by a 14-game streak. The first-team all-conference selection tallied 18 points, seven rebounds and six steals in Mercer’s near upset of second-seeded Iowa in the first round of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship. She was a four-time SoCon player of the week and three-time player of the month this season.
Thompson graduated summa cum laude with a degree in electrical engineering, receiving University Honors and finishing with a 3.98 grade point average. Thompson was a Google Cloud CoSIDA Academic All-America first-team selection and was named to the CoSIDA Academic All-District IV team. The five-time selection to Mercer’s President’s List and three-time SoCon Academic All-Conference selection earned the Pinnacle Award twice, given to the player with the highest GPA on the championship-winning team, and was awarded a SoCon postgraduate scholarship for her efforts on the court, in the classroom and in the community.
Thompson spent over five weeks volunteering with Mercer on Mission in Ecuador and Peru, working with a team of students, scientists and engineers to design and deploy a mercury capture system to reduce health risks for artisanal gold miners. The mercury capture system that Thompson helped design and test over two summers is now deployed in several Latin American and African countries and has a patent pending. Thompson made multiple trips to Macon’s Carlyle Place Retirement Community during her four years at Mercer, playing games, leading music and engaging with the residents. Within hours of returning from the Bears’ first-round matchup in Iowa, Thompson returned to campus for an event with GoBabyGo!, working alongside other students and faculty to modify battery-powered toy cars for children with limited mobility.
The Athlete of the Year Awards are selected annually by the Southern Conference athletics directors and a media member representing each conference school. The award recognizes athletic achievement, academic performance and civic involvement. Prior to 1990-91, the award was selected solely by members of the Southern Conference Sports Media Association. Beginning in 1991-92, the men's award was named after the late Bob Waters, who was Western Carolina's head football coach from 1969-88.
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