Union College women’s track & field senior Paige Jacobs is the 2019-20 Female Champions of Character Award winner, the Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC) announced Monday during its annual spring meetings.

The award is given to a student-athlete who demonstrates the NAIA Champions of Character core values on and off the campus.

The five core values of the NAIA Champions of Character program are integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship, and servant leadership. For Jacobs, the most important core value is integrity.

“Having strong moral principles is the way people can influence others by how they act and behave,” she said. “Having integrity gives you a better attitude no matter what life throws at you.”

Jacobs is a three-time All-AAC award winner in the discus and has made the AAC All-Academic Team three times. She has served as a representative for the track & field team on Union’s Council for Student-Athletes, president for the Psychology Club for two years, president for the National Honors Society of Psychology for one year, and the Vice President for Business Affairs for one year in Union’s Student Government Association.

Along with Jordan Brayton, another Union student-athlete, Jacobs created the ‘Bundles of Joy’ program, which collected winter clothes for students who could not afford them throughout Knox County, Kentucky. The clothes were made available for students in elementary, middle, high school, and college.

Jacobs is the third Union student-athlete to receive this award, joining Lydia Nash (2016) and Gerrard Newby (2017).