The NCAA has selected its 2000-01 class of Outstanding Sportspersons of the Year.

The three winners will be recognized during the NCAA Convention in Orlando, at the NCAA Foundation Leadership Conference in May and at the Citizenship Through Sports Alliance annual awards luncheon in July.

The winners of the second annual NCAA Outstanding Sportspersons of the Year are George Audu, a track and field athlete from Pennsylvania State University; Safiya Ingram, a track and field athlete from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; and Lindsay Morton, a tennis player from Ferrum College.

The trio was selected from a pool of applicants by the NCAA Committee on Sportsmanship and Ethical Conduct, chaired by Robert E. Frederick, athletics director at the University of Kansas.

"This year's winners represent what the award is all about," Frederick said. "They put others in front of self, and each performed sportsmanlike acts that served as examples for their student-athlete peers.

"From this year's applicant pool, we feel that the award is gaining momentum, and that more and more student-athletes and administrators alike are taking notice and rewarding these sportsmanlike acts."

The NCAA began recognizing Outstanding Sportspersons of the Year in 1999. The award honors student-athletes who have, through their actions in the competitive arena of intercollegiate athletics, demonstrated one or more of the ideals of sport, including fairness, civility, honesty, unselfishness, respect and responsibility.

Audu's sportsmanlike act occurred during the 1999 Big Ten Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships at Purdue University. After winning the title in the long jump, Audu handed his trophy to one of the Purdue assistant coaches and asked her to see that Mike Turner of the Boilermakers received the award. Turner was a Purdue long jump/triple jump specialist who had endured a freak injury in warm-ups six weeks earlier, and doctors at the time were still fighting to save his leg.

"When I spoke to (the Purdue assistant coach), I asked her not to tell anyone," Audu said when asked about the event. "I tried not to tell my teammates about it. I didn't want to draw attention to me. I didn't want it to lose its meaning."

Audu said he owed much of his success at Penn State to a number of people, but that he owed Turner, a good sport in his own right, his own recognition.

"Mike was very sportsmanlike," Audu said. "Before competitions, he would call all of us together in prayer. I felt like he not only touched my life, but the lives of other athletes. He helped us a lot."

Audu earned all-American honors for the third time during the 1999 Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships, placing sixth in the long jump. He also is a two-time Big Ten winner in the event.

Ingram received her award based on an incident that occurred during the 2000 Southeastern Conference Outdoor Track and Field Championships. During the women's hammer throw in which Ingram was a participant, she was given a mark of 64 meters by officials governing the meet, which would have been an Alabama and SEC record, as well as an automatic qualifying mark to the NCAA championships.

Ingram, however, suspected the mark had been measured incorrectly. When she told the officials, they remeasured her throw and indeed discovered that the distance had actually been 54 meters instead of 64 meters. That cost Ingram the title, the record and the qualifying mark.

Ingram, who currently is attending the University of Alabama Law School, ended up finishing second in the event.

Ferrum's Morton performed a similar act during the 2000 Dixie Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Tennis Championships. The sophomore was losing an eight-game pro set to a competitor from Christopher Newport University by the score of 6-3, but near the end of the match, the Christopher Newport player broke a string on her tennis racket and did not have another racket to use.

Tournament officials gave the Christopher Newport player five minutes to replace her equipment or forfeit the match. When she was not able to locate her coach and the five-minute period had almost expired, Morton offered her an extra racket from her own bag.

The Christopher Newport player went on to win the next two games and advance in the competition.

"It would have been ridiculous to have the match end (with a forfeit)," Morton said afterward.

Morton was recognized by the Christopher Newport players and coaches for her act after the tournament. But it was second nature to Morton, who performs more than 300 hours annually in community-service projects.

The three award winners will be honored in a ceremony preceding the delegates reception Saturday, January 6, at the NCAA Convention in Orlando.

Two student-athletes won the inaugural awards in May 1999. Subsequent awards are designed to honor one male and one female in each of the NCAA's three divisions, but many of the nominations for the 1999-00 awards did not meet the specified criteria.

Frederick said while many of the applicants showed a high level of sportsmanlike characteristics, such as community service, team leadership and academic success, many applications did not include a specific sportsmanlike act, which is why there was no winner selected in Division II and no male winner in Division III this year.

Applications for the 2000-01 awards are available online at www.ncaa.org (in the "Awards" section) or by calling the NCAA national office at 317/917-6222.