Devin Schelske, sports editor

On April 22, the Auggie Awards ceremony will honor academic and athletic excellence of deserving Auggie athletes and teams from the 2023-2024 season. Within the awards, we recognize the best of the best at Augsburg. However, the awards ceremony doesn’t compare previous athletes to current athletes. What if there was a ceremony that gave out awards for the all-time best teams, athletes and academic weapons? The nominees in such a ceremony would have to have held many Augsburg individual records as well as lead their team to success within the conference and postseason. Although we see it so rarely, the nominees would also have to have been recognized at a national level.

If four nominees were to be chosen, it’s hard to go wrong with Devean George, Marcus Levesseur, Emily Shilson and Ashley St. Aubin. 

Devean George was a basketball player from 1995 to 1999. He is likely the most well known former athlete on campus. After his career at Augsburg, he was picked in the first round of the NBA draft in the 23rd spot by the Los Angeles Lakers. In his time with the Lakers, he was a valuable player off the bench and helped the team to three NBA Championships. 

In his college career at Augsburg he was a two-time NABC Division Three Second Team All-American, a two-time MIAC Player of the Year, a three-time All-MIAC player and on the All-MIAC First Year Team in the 1995-1996 season. George holds several school records including career scoring average with 23.5 per game, career blocked shots with 158, single season rebounds with 317, single season blocked shots with 66, single season free throw made with 185 and points in a single game with 52. George helped lead his fellow Auggies to MIAC Championship wins and NCAA Tournament berths in the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons. 

Marcus Levesseur was a dual-sport athlete for the Auggies from 2003 to 2007. He was without a doubt the best Auggie Mens Wrestler in Augsburg history as well as a solid quarterback for the football team. Levesseur had one of the most dominant wrestling careers that division three athletics has ever seen. He had an undefeated career record of 155-0 to go along with four individual National Championship victories and four All-American First Team honors. He is the only Auggie wrestler to have ever had an undefeated career record and win four National Championships. He is also the second ever collegiate wrestler at any level to finish his career undefeated and untied. 

In his time at Augsburg, Levesseur helped lead the wrestling team to two National Championship team victories and two National Championship runner-ups. For the football team, Levesseur had an above average career with one All-MIAC First Team honor. He is one of four Auggies to have ever rushed for over 1,000 yards in a season and one of four to have ever rushed for 10 or more touchdowns in a season. Levesseur is also tied for the most touchdowns in a game in school history with four. After college, Levesseur fought in mixed martial arts professionally and made his way onto several UFC cards. 

Emily Shilson was a wrestler for the women’s team from 2019 to 2022. Before coming to Augsburg, she was the first woman to ever qualify for the Minnesota AAA Boys State Championship, qualifying for it three times in her career. She was also a six-time Minnesota Girls High School State Champion. Her career record as a wrestler for Centennial High School and Mounds View High School was 139-64. She was an honorable mention All-Conference honoree twice and won two All-Conference awards. According to her Instagram account, she is also a three-time World Champion and one-time Youth Olympic Games Champion. It’s highly likely that Shilson will be representing the U.S. in women’s wrestling someday. 

Shilson easily became the greatest Augsburg Womens Wrestler in school history. As an Auggie, she put up a perfect career record of 47-0, winning four National Championships and being honored as a four-time All-American along the way. She is the only Auggie Womens Wrestler in school history to win multiple individual National Championships. In a historic 2019-2020 season, Shilson won both the NWCA and the WCWA National Championships. As a leader, she helped lead the team to a ninth place NWCA finish in the 2019-2020 season, a fifth place finish in the 2020-2021 season and a sixth place finish in the 2021-2022 season. 

Ashley St. Aubin was an Augsburg Womens Soccer player from 2016 to 2019. In her career, she acquired three All-American honors, a First Team, a Second Team and a Third Team honor. St. Aubin earned MIAC All-Conference honors each season she played and won MIAC Offensive Player of the Year in 2017. She holds school records in career points with 173, career goals scored with 71, single-season points with 53 and single-season goals with 21. St. Aubin’s career was also filled with team success as she helped lead the team to two NCAA Tournaments in 2016 and 2019 where the team made it to round 32 both times. She also helped lead the team to two MIAC Regular Season Champion awards in 2017 and 2019 to go along with a MIAC Playoff Championship in 2016. 

Picking these nominees would still leave out great names such as Scott Hvistendahl who is the only Auggie Football player to win the Gagliardi trophy, lead his team to the only MIAC Championship the school has ever won in football and holds nearly all the school receiving records. The list also leaves out Ashley Peper, an Auggie Volleyball player who holds three AVCA All-American honors, has the school record for career kills and helped lead her team to two MIAC Championships as well as two National Tournament berths.

While all of these stats are great to talk about, at the end of the day, the greatest Auggie of all-time can only be decided by the fans.