Saxon stays hungry

Nahowan Saxon is still thin.

When he came to Columbia College, Saxon was a skinny freshman. When he leaves, he will be a skinny graduate.

“He tries a lot of different stuff to put on weight,” Saxon’s older brother Abraham said. “In the offseason he lifts and eats a lot but he loses it during the season. He eats a lot, so much that if I ate the way he does I’d be fat. He just eats and eats. He eats a lot of junk food and Caribbean-style food. Everything you put in front of him he’ll demolish.”

That inability to gain weight has not hindered Saxon’s performance with Columbia College, where he has played most of his career as a forward. His game has evolved each of his four seasons with the Cougars. After playing in only 18 of the team’s 34 games his freshman season, Saxon is now one of the Cougars’ mainstays, and has started 29 of the team’s 30 games. Last season, Saxon scored 13 points per game and was named All-American in the Midwest Conference. While he has been a steady contributor and impacted games with his hustle and effort, coach Bob Burchard said that will be only a footnote to Saxon’s career.

In Saxon’s four years with the Cougars, Columbia College has won 101 games and lost only 34. The 100th win, an 88-68 victory over Illinois-Springfield Thursday, made Saxon the 11th player at Columbia College to reach the milestone.

“I think the Century Club is his legacy,” Burchard said. “If you can be a part of a program that has won 100 games, you’ve done a lot of things right. That puts him in rarified air.

“You have to have a real good foundation when players are coming and going, and Nahowan has been one of our pillars. The most striking thing about Nahowan is the continual progression that he’s made. When he came to us he was a very inexperienced player. It’s been a real pleasure to see a guy make continual advances. He’s made himself into a real good player. He’s been on great teams and now has a lot of experience.”

Nahowan also appreciates how far he has come.

“It’s a great accomplishment. For me to be one of the other guys in the club I’m really thankful,” Saxon said. ”It’s really a blessing for me.”

The blessing of winning 100 games is only the latest for Saxon. A native of St. Vincent, Saxon moved to the United States, settling in Shreveport, La., and attending Evangel Christian Academy. After finishing his high school career, Saxon said he didn’t know whether he would end up playing in college. Abraham, then a player at John Wood Community College in Quincy, Ill., told his coach Jeff Moore that his brother was looking for a place to play. Moore then referred Nahowan to Burchard for a tryout.

“I told Bob that Nahowan was a very good student and that he was very dedicated. I told him that he was ready for a four-year school,” said Moore, who is now an assistant coach at Bossier Parrish Community College in Bossier City, La. “I also told him that Nahowan was a very good athlete with a lot of potential.”

According to Nahowan, potential was about all he had.

“I didnt think I was really anything coming out of high school,” Saxon said. “I couldn’t shoot, I couldn’t dribble, I couldn’t do anything.”

Despite his shortcomings, Burchard also saw the potential in Saxon that Moore did. That potential, along with Saxon’s athleticism, maturity and intelligence, helped sway Burchard into handing him a scholarship straight out of high school, a rarity for Columbia College.

“For us to recruit freshmen they have to come out of somewhere with some references. We like to recruit smart kids as freshman,” Burchard said. “Freshman year is so much of a transitionary period and we feel that it’s easier for guys that are in a good academic position to make that transition.

“Jeff (Moore) said that he thought he was raw, but that he could develop. He’s an incredibly respectful and highly intelligent person. Jeff steered us right.”

Saxon’s career at Columbia College isn’t quite over, however. With their 9-3 conference record, Saxon and the Cougars shared the conference’s regular season crown with Illinois-Springfield. Combined with their 23 wins overall, the Cougars appear to be in good shape to make their eighth-straight appearance in the NAIA National Tournament. They can win an automatic berth to the tournament if they win three times in the AMC conference tournament, with their first chance coming tonight against Williams-Baptist at the Arena at Southwell Complex.

“I really want to finish on a good note,” Saxon said. “There’s still unfinished business.”