Blake Gillikin

Classroom

Blake Gillikin owns a perfect 4.0 GPA. In May 2017, he was presented with the Penn State President’s Freshman Award, given annually to undergraduate degree candidates who have earned a 4.0 cumulative grade-point average based on at least 12 graded Penn State credits completed in their first semester of admission. He claimed Penn State’s Evan Pugh Scholar Award, given to juniors and seniors who are in the upper 0.5 percent of their respective classes, in May 2018. He interned at Drayer Physical Therapy in State College in the spring and summer of 2019 and also performed a job shadow at Penn State Heath in State College in the summer of 2019. Gillikin also collected CoSIDA Academic All-American First Team accolades in 2018, becoming the first punter in program history to do so. He was also a CoSIDA Academic All-District choice in 2017. Gillikin is a two-time Big Ten Distinguished Scholar and a two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree. In 2017, he earned CoSIDA Academic All-District. He is on pace to graduate in December 2019 with a degree in kinesiology.

Character

As a two-time captain, Gillikin is among the leaders of the program, volunteering his time both in the community and with his teammates. In 2018, he served as the treasurer for Uplifting Athletes at Penn State.

Community

Gillikin created a program to have student-athletes donate their new or gently used backpacks and filled them with school supplies (which he solicited donations for) to give them to unprivileged kids at the Youth Service Bureau in Centre County. As the treasurer of the Penn State Uplifting Athletes chapter in 2018, he helped the chapter raise nearly $115,000 for rare disease treatment and research. He participated in THON events, Hershey Hospital visits and a variety of other community service projects.

Competition

Gillikin ranks No. 1 on Penn State’s career punting average charts (43.32 yards per punt), passing Jeremy Boone’s 43.13 career average from 2007-09. He has 37 career punts downed inside the opponent’s 10-yard line and is the only player in program history with six punts of 65 or more yards and three punts of 70 or more yards in a season or career. In 2018, he set a program record with a 43.95 punting average, breaking the previous standard of 43.55 set by Ralph Giacomarro in 1981. Gillikin boomed three punts of 70 or more yards to set the school standard.

In 2018, Gillikin earned AP-All Bowl Team honors. In 2017, he was named an honorable mention All-American punter by GPR Punt Rating and earned second-team All-Big Ten honors from both the coaches and media panels. He was also selected second-team All-Big Ten by the Associated Press.