The NCAA News - News and Features

April 6, 1998

Eight student-athletes are Walter Byers Scholarship finalists

Eight student-athletes -- four men and four women -- have been selected as finalists for the two Walter Byers Scholarships that will be awarded this spring by the Association.

The finalists, who represent all three NCAA membership divisions, were interviewed April 5-6 in Atlanta by the NCAA Walter Byers Scholarship Committee, which will select the two scholarship recipients.

The men's finalists are Robert Bradley Gray, a football defensive tackle at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Drew Robert Hansen, a basketball player at 1998 Division I Men's Basketball Championship runner-up University of Utah; Joshua P. Landau, a gymnast at 1997 National Collegiate Men's Gymnastics Championships winner University of California, Berkeley; and Christopher William Maender, 1997 Division II men's swimming 400-yard individual medley champion at Drury College.

Female finalists are Paula Lenore Migliore, a softball player at St. John's University (New York) who also has participated in varsity volleyball and fencing; Sarah E. Gohl, basketball team captain and tennis player at Eureka College; Janelle Tranquillo, member of two Division I Field Hockey Championship quarterfinal teams at Ball State University; and Marsha Ann Harris, an all-America basketball player whose last-second layup in the final of the 1997 Division III Women's Basketball Championship clinched the title for New York University.

Each Byers scholar receives a $10,000 scholarship from the Association. The awards were established in 1988 to recognize the contributions of the former NCAA executive director by encouraging excellence in academic performance by student-athletes.

Award recipients are required to have at least a 3.500 grade-point average (4.000 scale), show evidence of superior character and leadership, and demonstrate that participation in athletics has been a positive influence on personal and intellectual development, among other qualifications.