WCHA Names Eli Vlaisavljevich Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year

Michigan Technological University senior Eli Vlaisavljevich was named the WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year, the league announced on March 18. Vlaisavljevich joins Geoff Sarjeant (1992) as the only Huskies ever to earn the award.

Vlaisavljevich, a senior defenseman from Shoreview, Minn., has been named a WCHA Scholar-Athlete three times and to the All-WCHA Academic Team three times during his collegiate career at Michigan Tech. He currently carries a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average in biomedical engineering.

Vlaisavljevich is also among 10 finalists for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award for 2009-10. He has been awarded the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship and the Michigan Tech’s Provost Award for Scholarship, and he was named to the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District First Team. He helps in severalelementary classrooms, is a mentor with the Michigan Tech Athletics Koaches Kids Program and volunteers with the Copper Country Junior Hockey Association. 

Vlaisavljevich appeared in 111 career games for the Huskies, earning 10 points with three goals, seven assists.

The WCHA Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year Award is determined from nominations made by the member institutions, and each institution has one final vote. The criteria include: 1) must be a senior student-athlete, i.e. one who is finishing his competition as an eligible player in the WCHA; 2) consistently displays outstanding sportsmanship on and off the ice; 3) is a good student making satisfactory progress toward a degree; and 4) is a good hockey player who has performed consistently as a regular member of the team.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.