Former Mtn. View basketball star shines at the next level
Noah Cheney nominated as New England Collegiate Conference's Student Athlete of the Year
(Update: Adding video, comments from Cheney)
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Part of the 2020 graduating class, Noah Cheney had quite the unique college career. The former Mountain View High School basketball standout made a name for himself both on and off the court at Eastern Nazarene College in Massachusetts.
Cheney was team captain of the ENC Lions' basketball team from his sophomore to his senior year. He became the school's first student body president to score 1,000 career points.
A member of the Class of 2020, Cheney graduated summa cum laude with a near-perfect GPA.
For those reasons, and many others, the New England Collegiate Conference has nominated Cheney as a candidate for Student-Athlete of the Year.
"It's a big honor," Cheney told NewsChannel 21 Thursday. "It's kind of a cool way to end my undergraduate college career with something -- even just being nominated for something like this is a cool way to kind of finish college."
After college, Cheney had plans to intern at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) headquarters in Indianapolis. The program was supposed to start next week, but it's been canceled because of the coronavirus.
Once the sports world picks back up, Cheney will pursue his dream of working in the front office for a professional basketball team.
"I would love to be with the Portland Trail Blazers,” Cheney said. “Home state, but I'll take any team."
Cheney said looking back, he would not change a thing about his time in school. He also has some advice for the high school Class of 2020 to make the most out of their own college experience.
"I just say get involved,” Cheney said. “Get involved, do everything you can on campus. You'll have so much time to do all that other stuff, but there's only a limited time in your life that you can only take advantage of college.
"I say take advantage of the small opportunities that you have, clubs, activities and that stuff going on around campus. I say just participate in everything that you can."
Cheney said he'll find out if he's crowned Student-Athlete of the year next Wednesday.
