University of Minnesota Athletics
GEN: Gopher Athletics Announces 2004-05 Scholar-Athlete Awards
4/19/2005 12:00:00 AM | Athletics
The scholar-athlete award is in recognition of outstanding academic achievement while participating in intercollegiate athletics. To qualify for the award, student-athletes must maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0. Of the Minnesota student- athletes, almost half are scholar-athletes.
Volleyball’s Lindsey Taatjes and men’s hockey student-athlete Judd Stevens will be honored with the department’s Outstanding Achievement Award which recognizes student-athletes who are accomplished in the four primary areas of the NCAA Life Skills Program: leadership, academics, volunteerism and athletics.
Three Gopher coaches will share the ACSS Partnership Award: men’s head gymnastics coach Mike Burns, men’s assistant basketball coach Jim Molinari and wrestling assistant coach Joe Russell. The award is presented to a member of the coaching staff in recognition of superior partnership with ACSS in support of student-athlete success.
Five male and five female student-athletes have been selected to the department’s distinguished Top-Five GPA list. To qualify for the award, a student-athlete must have three continuous years as a member of a Gopher athletic team, have participated in the current academic year, be an undergraduate student and have earned one of the highest cumulative grade point averages in the department. The Top-Five scholar athletes averaged better than a 3.90 GPA for the 2004-05 academic year.
Three members of the women’s track & field program earned Top-Five acclaim, while two members from the men’s track & field program will also be honored tonight. Sarah Hesser, Carly Emil and Paula Hoffert will be recognized from the women’s program, while Andy Tilstra and John Albert are Top-Five honorees from the men’s program. Men’s and women’s swimming & diving will each have one honoree with Travis Beckerle representing the men’s program and Sarah Solfelt the women’s program. Other Top-Five award winners will include rowing’s Katie Biese, men’s tennis student-athlete Mikey Kantar and men’s gymnast Guillermo Alvarez.
