Minichello receives 2025 NCAA Top Ten Award

NASHVILLE — Marc Anthony Minichello has turned out to be a national powerhouse in the sport of javelin in just a short time since picking up the sport in high school while at Wyoming Area.

Due to a football shoulder injury in his high school sophomore year, it was suggested he go out for track and throw javelin. Doing so changed the course of his life forever.

That decision has taken him to heights that he may never achieve in baseball or football.

In his senior year of high school, Minichello took the PIAA District II javelin title and went on to win the PIAA State Championship.

That decision has earned him multiple All-American honors including a two-time NCAA National Javelin Champion in 2022 and 2024.

Along the way, he won a pair of Southern Conference championships and Ivy League championships.

In 2019 and 2020, Minichello earned All-American honors from the U.S. Track and Field and Cross-Country Coaches Association.

He was the track team captain while at the University of Pennsylvania as well as the University of Georgia (UGA) where he finished his NCAA career.

Minichello was a standout off the field as he was on.

At Georgia, he served on the campus Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and participated in the campus Student-Athlete Leadership Academy.

His community service includes volunteering for the Special Olympics and local elementary schools.

His javelin skill has afforded him to attempt not once but twice to make the U.S. Olympic team in 2021 and 2024 where the competition is extremely difficult and fell a little short.

With his undergraduate and graduate studies complete, his name was entered in the 2025 NCAA Today’s Top Ten Award for former students and out of thousands of colleges and universities from Division I, II, and III representing 100,000 to 150,000 students, Minichello was informed he was selected as one of the top ten awardees.

The award recognizes former student-athletes for their exceptional athletic and academic achievements, as well as their contributions to their campuses and communities.

The awardees were selected by the NCAA Honors Committee.

He accepted his award at the NCAA Convention on Jan. 14 at Nashville, Tennessee with his mother Paula by his side.

“This is the cherry on top of my career,” Minichello exclaimed. “When I got the award I was excited about it and everyone was congratulating me and then I found out it was pretty significant thing.”

Minichello laughed as he was explaining on how he had no knowledge of the award nor did he apply for it.

“I didn’t realize until I got the award on how big it is,” Minichello said. “I’ve won a few awards in the past but it’s always been stacked up against a relatively small peer group like UGA Track or UGA Athletic Department or Penn’s Athletic Department where it’s 50 to 1,000 people. Or to win the javelin is against a couple thousand athletes.”

He soon found out how big the award was really an eye-opener.

“They flew us out to the convention, picked up in private cars, they held the convention at this gigantic and beautiful hotel. They had it all professionally run. It was pretty cool.”

Over the few days of the convention, Minichello took part in podcasts interviews and all the equipment was professional video and audio recording. I was really surprise on how a big deal it really was.”

Minichello said he is the recipient of several awards in his career but nothing of the magnitude of the NCAA Top Ten Award.

Currently, Minichello is training for javelin at UGA as a professional while working a part-time job for PSG Energy Services.

He said the 20-hour per week job affords him to train with one of the world’s best javelin coaches in the world, Don Babbitt.

Babbitt has coached 30 NCAA champions and 149 All-Americans as well as those who set school records.

“I fully believe I one of the best coaches in the world I’m training under right now so I don’t want to go anywhere or have the need to,”

Minichello trains five days a week at the track and does light workouts on the weekends with the aim of getting into World events here in the U.S and abroad in Europe.

He is setting his sights on the 2028 Olympic Games at Los Angeles where he believes he still has another burst or two of improvement yet to come.

“Training is slow and steady but slowly getting better,” Minichello noted. “Hopefully I’ll have another good year, show a little more progress and hopefully in time I’ll be exactly where I want to be. I think I’ll have another opportunity for a breakthrough.”