Local graduate earns national recognition

Taylor Billman, 2023 Soda Springs High School Graduate and Cardinal athlete, earned recognition for her academic performance as a student-athlete at Colorado Northwestern Community College in Rangely, Colorado. As a student-athlete participating in the National Junior College Athletic Association Region 18 conference, Taylor earned NJCAA 2024-2025 First Team All-Academic Award honors for her classroom performance. The NJCAA recognizes student athletes in three teams based on GPA. First team honors are awarded to athletes that complete a minimum of 24 credits in the year and maintain a 4.0 GPA. Second team is 3.80-3.99, and third team is 3.60-3.79. Taylor was one of three active athletes from Idaho in Region 18 to receive the First Team Award, the only sophomore in her college to receive first team honors, and appreciates being validated for all her studying in hotel rooms and van rides to basketball games all over the region. In addition to Taylor’s first team award, she was accepted into the Phi Theta Kappa junior college honor society for her academic success. She expressed her gratitude for her academic tutor for helping her learn study habits, how to learn for something other than a test, and time management skills so that being a student-athlete at the collegiate level wasn’t as overwhelming!

Taylor also excelled on the basketball court taking her defensive mindset into games, leading the Region 18 conference in steals per game while shooting 36% from the 3 point line, chipping in 9.1 points per game, 3.8 rebounds per game, and doing whatever she could to help her young team learn and grow. She renewed her point guard skills from her days as a Cardinal, and found herself playing multiple positions throughout the basketball season. Plagued by chronic pain and health issues during her entire prep and collegiate playing career, Taylor will undergo surgical treatment to fix a rare vascular condition she has faced her entire life, which was just recently discovered through intensive medical research from her mentor. With an average of more than 50% of her blood supply flow constricted below her chest, Taylor’s body has been redirecting essential blood supply from her digestive organs in order to support her muscles during basketball activities, and it also has impacted her ability to recover from games and elite training due to the digestive compromise her body makes to play. In order for her body to continue forward with elite training and competition and so she can play without excruciating pain, she is on a medical year of absence from college basketball. 

Taylor’s all-around style of play from her sophomore season excited numerous coaches in the NAIA and NCAA D2 divisions, and Taylor holds offers from schools from Kansas to Hawai’i and many in between to play following her medical leave this season. Taylor is currently an academic senior at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado, pursuing her degree in Exercise Science, with a pre-physical therapy emphasis. Taylor plans on attending graduate school to obtain a master’s degree in Athletic Training and her Doctorate of Physical Therapy in the hopes of working in pediatric, sensory, and aquatic physical therapy upon graduation.