MOSCOW, Idaho – Francisco Bascon and Malaina Thacker have been named this week’s Vandals of the Week.
Bascon, a business economics major from Spain, has been tremendous on the court during his first official season with Vandal tennis. He has also been outstanding in the classroom, posting a 3.51 cumulative grade-point average (GPA) to date.
“Here in college, the most important thing is to be prepared,” said Bascon. “If you keep procrastinating things, that’s not good because as an athlete and doing both things at the same time it’s difficult. Having that routine every day, and what you want to do every moment of the day, is the most important thing.”
Thacker, who earned All-Big Sky honors in cross country this season, currently boasts a perfect 4.0 GPA in her final semester of exercise, health and human science studies.
“I think the biggest skill that I’ve learned through running, especially in college, has been time management,” said Thacker. “And that’s really helped me out in the classroom. With cross country and track, we have three competition seasons, so we’re competing all year-round.”
While at dramatically different places in their collegiate careers, both are looking toward what’s next.
“I’m aspiring to be a physician assistant,” Thacker said. “I’ll actually be starting at the ISU PA program down at their Meridian campus next fall.”
“I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do after college, but I want to do something related to business,” Bascon said. “It’s the major that I really wanted to do, above all the other majors.”
Bascon and Thacker are no strangers to athletic recognition, and are also thankful for the recognition in the classroom.
“It means that I’m doing a really good job academic-wise, so I’m very happy about that. Here, it’s not only tennis,” said Bascon. “To be successful in tennis you have to be good in academics too. I think in this aspect, being good in academics helped me and helps the athletic department to see that we have really good student-athletes in general.
“I think it’s a really big deal to be recognized for academics,” said Thacker. “I’ve always been really hard on myself about academics and I’ve definitely always worked for that. It also just reflets really well on our team.”
