Quashi "Ayo" Phillips, University of St. Thomas, Men's Tennis

QUASHI "AYO" PHILLIPS OF UNIVERSITY OF ST. THOMAS, a senior on the men's tennis team from Houston, Texas, has been selected as the SCAC Character & Community Male Student-Athlete of the Week for the week beginning March 9.

The SCAC Character & Community award honors the efforts of student-athletes who excel in the field of athletics, and also serve their campus and community.



Philips has been one of the brightest stars during the first season of UST tennis, having compiled a 5-2 record in both singles play and doubles play. Away from the court, he works to make days brighter for those in need.

As president of UST’s Criminology, Law and Society (CLS) club, Philips has spearheaded several community service projects. He says one of the pillars of the club’s existence is to promote positive changes in the community.

“It’s not only about criminology, it is also about helping the community,” Philips said. “I didn’t want to just promote helping the community without actually helping the community; it’s really important for us to take time out of our day to help people that are in need.”

One of the biggest community service projects Philips and CLS have spearheaded was a toy drive on the UST campus that benefitted the Houston Area Women’s Center in December.

“We wanted our school to participate,” Philips said. “It wasn’t only our club; we made a booth for [the UST community] to come and drop and donate toys for the kids in the program. We also spent some money to go and buy toys ourselves and after about a month of the box being there, we filled the box completely up and the box was taken to the women’s center.”

Helping to coordinate the service projects has taught him lessons as a student-athlete.

“[These efforts] help with teamwork and getting your team together to make someone else’s day better,” Philips said. “We can’t really have it to be about us, it has to be about them. The same thing with team, it’s not about the individual person, it’s about the team.”

Philips says helping those in need while he is in school has given him a passion to continue to serve the community that will extend long after he graduates.

“It’s not only something I want to do in school, I want to do it the rest of my life,” he said. “By doing this in school and having this opportunity to serve, I get more connections in ways I can always help people.”