University of Minnesota Athletics
Lawrence Earns Fred O. Watson Award
12/13/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
MINNEAPOLIS (GopherSports.com) - The University of Minnesota men's cross country team has honored team captain Charlie Lawrence with the program's Fred O. Watson Award as team MVP following a redshirt junior season that saw Lawrence earn Second Team All-Big Ten honors while repeating as an NCAA All-Region selection.
A native of Foley, Minn., Lawrence proved to be Minnesota's most consistent competitor during the 2016 season - factoring into the team's scoring in each of his five races this year. The redshirt junior led the Maroon & Gold with a ninth-place finish at the 2016 Big Ten Cross Country Championships to earn Second Team All-Big Ten honors and followed up with his second-straight NCAA All-Region accolade with an 18th-place finish at the 2016 NCAA Midwest Regional.
Lawrence opened the season with an eighth-place finish at the Oz Memorial, giving him two top-10 finishes on the year and four in his Gophers career. Now a three-time letterwinner for the Maroon & Gold, Lawrence was also recognized as an Academic All-Big Ten honoree earlier this month.
Minnesota's MVP award is named after University of Minnesota alum Fred O. Watson, who won three-straight Big Ten titles from 1913-15 and was the conference's first-ever repeat champion. As a captain in 1914, Watson helped the Gophers to their second Big Ten team title. Watson, who passed away in 1965, was a founding member of the University of Minnesota's `M' Club and was inducted into the USATF Minnesota Track & Field Hall of Fame in 2002.
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