July 8, 2010
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - From 2000 to 2010, Western Washington University enjoyed more success in athletics than in any previous decade in school history.
The Vikings were twice ranked in the top 10 among over 300 NCAA Division II schools in the Learfield Sports Directors' Cup national all-sports standings and were among the top 45 eight times. They were Great Northwest Athletic Conference all-sports champions on six occasions and had more team and individual national champions and national participants, All-Americans and national scholar-athletes than at any other time in the WWU history.
Thus, being accorded the honor of WWU Athlete of the Decade for that time frame says it all for men's basketball forward Grant Dykstra and football punter-placekicker Michael Koenen, who share the male award, and rower Audrey Coon and volleyball libero Courtney Schneider, who share the female honor.
Coon captained the national champion WWU rowing team in 2009, helping the Vikings to their fifth straight NCAA II national title, the first time that feat had been accomplished in any NCAA rowing division.
It was Coon's third national championship. Western's varsity eight finished the season with a perfect 10 wins in 10 races. Among those triumphs were victories at nationals, the Western Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta, the unofficial NCAA II West Regional and the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference Championships.
Coon was named a Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association All-American in 2010 and for the third straight time a CRCA National Scholar-Athlete.
A NCRC all-star, Coon rowed with a U.S. development team during the summer of 2009, winning gold medals in the open lightweight eight and intermediate lightweight four and a silver medal in the intermediate pair.
Coon, a native of Kenai, Alaska, where she graduated from Kenai Central High School, was a first-team ESPN The Magazine/College Sports Information Directors of America College Division Women's At-Large Academic All-American after being a second-team pick the previous year. Coon also was a ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA District 8 and Great Northwest Athletic Conference at-large academic all-star, both for the third time.
A NCAA Woman of the Year nominee, Coon is currently attending the National Outdoor Leadership School in Vernal, Utah, where she is taking a month-long outdoor education course designed to expose students to the theory and practice of outdoor leadership, teamwork and expedition behavior.
The 6-foot-4 Dykstra ended his four-year career as Western's all-time scoring leader in points with 1,844, and was fourth in assists with 404, sixth in rebounds with 576 and seventh in steals with 210.
A graduate of Lynden Christian High School, Dykstra was a consensus All-American as a senior at WWU during the 2005-06 campaign, being named to four different teams, in helping the Vikings to the West Regional championship game. That season, he ranked ninth nationally in three-point makes per game (3.4), setting a school record with 101 treys. Dykstra averaged 20.6 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.0 steals. He shot 50.6 percent from the field, including 43.7 percent from 3-point range and 84.5 percent at the free throw line.
Making Dykstra's accomplishments all that more incredible was that he survived a life-threatening childhood accident that nearly cost him his right arm. Dykstra won the V Foundation Comeback Award in 2006, becoming the first non-Division I student-athlete to do so, and received the United States Basketball Writers Association Most Courageous Award in 2005.
Dykstra's right arm was mangled in a grain auger when he was two and required 16 surgeries over the next 10 years and countless hours of physical therapy to regain strength and movement in the arm, which is five inches shorter than his left. He taught himself to shoot a basketball left-handed and learned to dribble with either hand.
Dykstra is in his fifth year as a Business Services Loan Officer at the Whatcom Educational Credit Union in Bellingham.
Koenen ranked among the top four nationally in punting in each of his last three years at Western from 2002 to 2004, leading the country as a sophomore with a school-record 44.9 average, one a school-best 73 yards. He was fourth as a junior at 43.4 and third as a senior at 43.5.
A graduate of Ferndale High School, Koenen was named an All-American, either pre-season or post-season in each of those years, being a first-team D2Football.com, Football Gazette and Daktronics choice in 2002 as well as second-team Associated Press Little All-American. He set school career records for punting average (43.1 avg.), kick scoring (272), made PATs (143), consecutive PATs (44), and kickoffs for touchbacks (73); season standards for made PATs (43), consecutive field goals (8) and punting average (44.9); and game marks for PATs made (9) and longest field goal (54 yards).
Koenen was a four-time national special teams Player of the Week, being the D2football.com Northwest Region Special Teams Player of the Year in 2004. He was a four-time GNAC all-star as a placekicker and a two-time first-team pick as a punter.
Koenen was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2005 by the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League, and is entering his sixth season handling punting duties for that team as well as having kickoff and field goal responsibilities on occasion. Against New England on Oct. 9, 2005, he kicked a 58-yard field goal, the ninth longest in NFL history.
Schneider, a graduate of Snohomish High School, finished third nationally among NCAA II career dig leaders with a Great Northwest Athletic Conference and school-record four-year total of 2,695. Her 7.00 career digs per game average was a national record by nearly one per game.
Schneider was a first-team American Volleyball Coaches Association and second-team Daktronics All-American in 2007, helping Western to a 26-5 record, GNAC crown, Pacific Regional title and NCAA II national championship match. She also was a first-team AVCA and Daktronics Pacific Region all-star and unanimous first-team GNAC all-star, each for the third straight year, leading the nation in digs per game for the second consecutive season with a NCAA record average of 7.74.
The 2007 GNAC Player of the Year, Schneider was a NCAA II Elite Eight and Pacific Regional all-tournament pick that season. She set a NCAA II tournament record with 44 digs versus Washburn KS, and established a league and school record earlier in the year with 50 digs versus Central Washington. Schneider led the GNAC for four consecutive years in digs with a league and school record of 851 as a senior.
Schneider was a second-team ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District VIII and GNAC academic all-star for two straight years.
A NCAA Woman of the Year nominee, Schneider will be a graduate assistant coach for Western this fall after helping out at NCAA I Idaho last year.
