Six former student-athletes who enjoyed prominent collegiate careers in a variety of sports while going on to succeed in various professional fields are this year's NCAA Silver Anniversary Award recipients.

The award honors former student-athletes who have distinguished themselves since completing their college athletics careers 25 years ago. The award winners were selected by the NCAA Honors Committee, which is composed of administrators at member institutions and distinguished citizens who are former student-athletes.

This year's honorees are Richard C. Chapman [Augustana College (South Dakota), basketball]; Maurice "Bo" Ellis (Marquette University, basketball); Herman R. Frazier (Arizona State University, track and field); Betsy King (Furman University, golf, basketball); John P. Naber (University of Southern California, swimming and diving); and Rodney E. Slater (Eastern Michigan University, football).

Following are biographical sketches of this year's Silver Anniversary Award winners. The recipients will be honored Sunday, January 13, at the Honors Dinner during the NCAA Convention in Indianapolis.

Richard C. Chapman
Augustana College (South Dakota)
Basketball
President/Chief Executive Officer, Clark Bardes Consulting

The leader of the nation's largest compensation and benefits consulting company, Chapman was a basketball standout during his college career, earning both District V all-America and Academic All-America recognition while leading Augustana to the NCAA Division II tournament in two of four years. He scored 1,381 career points to rank as the second-highest-scoring guard in Vikings history (ninth overall), while leading the school to three runner-up finishes in the North Central Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The 1977 South Dakota College Athlete of the Year was a three-time all-conference performer and was named to the conference all-academic team three times.

Off the court, the 1991 inductee to the Augustana College Athletic Hall of Fame was student president of his campus' Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and a member of the Augustana Economics/Business Club, Men's Senate and the Blue Key Honor Society.

Professionally, he helped launch the initial public offering of his company in 1998 after having led the Clark/Bardes merger the previous year. He mobilized a group of professional consultants that leveraged the company into the largest compensation and benefits consulting firm in banking industry and secured endorsements by the American Bankers Association and 45 State Banking Associations. The first South Dakota State Director for Fellowship of Christian Athletes (pioneered development of FCA organizations on 50 high school and 10 college campuses) from 1978 to 1980, Chapman relocated the FCA National Office to Kansas City, Missouri, to lead a successful professional-team initiative directed toward Kansas City's Chiefs (football), Kings (basketball) and Royals (baseball).

His many professional and civic contributions include membership on St. Paul's Outreach (college campus ministry) Board of Directors; the Summit Academy Advisory Board (inner city educational and career placement service organization); and Christian Heritage Academy Board of Directors. Chapman also is a frequent lecturer at several national banking functions.

Maurice "Bo" Ellis
Marquette University
Basketball
Men's basketball coach, Chicago State University

Ellis led Marquette to its only national title in 1977. An eventual first-round NBA draft pick, he is the only Marquette player to have started in two NCAA championship games (1977 and 1974) and was a 1975 candidate for the Naismith Award. The two-time team most valuable player did not miss a game in his career, playing in 119 contests. During that three-year span, he led the team to a 101-18 record. The Marquette record-holder for field goals made (674) ended his career as the university's No. 2 all-time leading scorer (1,663) and currently ranks fifth. He is Marquette's No. 2 all-time rebounder, having led the school in that category for three straight seasons. In addition, he designed the team's distinct uniforms.

The basketball recognition kept coming from Marquette after he graduated. He was inducted into the Club M Hall of Fame in 1988, and in 1992 became one of only three former players to have his jersey number (31) retired. He also was named to the school's 75th anniversary team. He was elected into the Chicagoland Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.

After a professional basketball career that included three years in the NBA, Ellis moved into coaching. As an assistant during an 11-year span at Marquette, he helped lead the team to four NCAA tournaments, two National Invitational Tournaments, and Conference USA (1996-97) and Great Midwest Conference (1993-94) titles. He has held his current position at Chicago State since 1998.

A co-chairman for the local chapter of United Cerebral Palsy, he is also an active participant in the Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer Fund and Special Olympics of Wisconsin. He also has participated in television spots promoting the "Gimme Five Immunize" program, promoting the importance of childhood immunization among Chicago's minorities.

Herman R. Frazier
Arizona State University
Track and field
Director of athletics, University of Alabama at Birmingham

A gold medalist in the 1,600-meter relay in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal and a member of the former world- and American-record relay teams in the 800-meter and distance medley teams, Frazier also won a bronze medal in the 400 meters in the 1976 Olympics. He is a former world-record-holder for the indoor 500 meters and former American record-holder for the indoor 400 meters.

As a collegiate student-athlete, Frazier helped lead Arizona State to its only track and field team championship in 1977 by winning the 400 meters. The eight-time all-American helped set the Penn Relays 1,600-meter record in 1977. A three-time all-Western Athletic Conference selection, he also served as team captain in 1977.

Frazier attained his current position after a long administrative career at his alma mater, where he started as assistant athletics director in 1979. As senior associate athletics director for business and operations at the school, he managed a $24 million budget and oversaw a $30 million facilities improvement project from 1996 to 2000.

Inducted into the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce in 1999, he also is a member of Arizona State's Sports Hall of Fame.

Frazier is an NCAA peer-review team member and has served as chair of the NCAA Men's and Women's Track and Field Committee.

A Goodwill Ambassador for the state of Arizona and the United States, he has been one of three vice-presidents of the United States Olympic Committee since 1996, as well as serving on George Steinbrenner's 10-member Olympic Overview Commission. His other international sports contributions include being a member of the Olympic Games Atlanta Committee Board of Directors (1991 to 1993); vice-president of USA Track and Field (1992 to 1996); and a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee Executive Board (1996 to the present), among other Olympic committees.

Betsy King
Furman University
Golf, basketball, field hockey
Professional golfer

The first player to reach the $6 million mark in career earnings, King has won 34 Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) career titles from 1977 through 2001. Last year, she was recognized during the LPGA's 50th anniversary as one of its top 50 players and teachers.

A three-year letter-winner in basketball at Furman, the two-sport student-athlete was the Paladins' Athlete of the Year and Woman Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 1977 after helping lead the school to an AIAW golf championship in 1976. That same year, she was the low-scoring amateur at the U.S. Women's Open.

King's LPGA highlights include winning three events in 1990, including a second consecutive U.S. Women's Open title, to become the third LPGA player to break $3 million in career earnings. In 1996, the Betsy King LPGA Classic was added to the LPGA's schedule in her honor, and in 1998, the five-time Solheim Cup team member captured the Nabisco Dinah Shore title for her 31st career victory and sixth major career championship, joining Amy Alcott as one of only two players to have won that major championship three times.

King's civic achievements include a National Pathfinder Award from the Indiana Sports Corporation for commitment to improving the lives of America's youth, which was presented in June. She is a co-founder of the Furman University Pro-Am golf tournament, which recently celebrated its 20th anniversary and has raised more than $1.5 million for the Furman Golf Scholarship endowment. This year she will stage the sixth First Union Betsy King Classic to raise money for children's charities. She is one of the LPGA's leading voices for The Drive For Life, the LPGA's official international project, and serves on National Board of Trustees for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

John P. Naber
University of Southern California
Swimming and diving
Operator of Naber and Associates

The four-time 1976 Olympic gold medalist set world records in the 100- and 200-meter backstroke and the 400- and 800-meter medley relay and also won a silver medal in the 200-meter freestyle that same year. In addition, he set 100- and 200-meter Olympic backstroke records that lasted seven years after his retirement.

As a collegian, he led Southern California to four straight NCAA team championships from 1974 through 1977 and was a 15-time champion (10 individual titles and five on relay teams). The high-point scorer at all four NCAA championships in which he competed, Naber was was named an NCAA Today's Top V recipient in 1978. He won the 1977 James E. Sullivan Award as the nation's Amateur Athlete of the Year, and was runner-up to gold-medal decathlete Bruce Jenner for the same award the year before.

Since 1982, he has operated Naber and Associates, which provides motivational speakers, personal appearances, sports-related marketing and consultations for corporations interested in using athletes for promotions. He was an Olympic broadcaster in 2000 in Sydney, his seventh Olympic assignment, and has been a play-by-play host for more than 30 different Olympic sports, as well as an announcer for NBC Sports, CBS Sports and ABC's Wide World of Sports.

Naber is President of the United States Olympic Alumni Association, and he served as a torch-bearer in the Olympic Torch Relay in 1984 and 1996 and will do so again in 2002.

He has worked for the Children's Miracle Network and is an active fund-raiser for the United States Olympic Committee and his alma mater. Naber also is a member of the Character Counts sports all-stars and an advisor to the Character Counts! Coalition and has worked with the Healthy Competition Foundation to educate youth of the dangers of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Rodney E. Slater
Eastern Michigan University
Football
Attorney

The third-longest serving Secretary of Transportation in U.S. history, Slater led a Cabinet department of President Clinton's that had 100,000 employees and an annual budget of $60 billion from 1997 to 2001. Since the end of Clinton's two terms, the former student-athlete has worked at Patton Boggs LLP, in Washington, D.C.

During Slater's watch as Federal Highway Administrator and Secretary, the federal transportation budget increased by 104 percent. More than 5,000 miles of the National Highway System (NHS) were restored. Environmentally, air pollution from motor vehicles dropped 20 percent, and more than two acres of wetlands were replaced for each acre lost to highway construction.

As head of the Federal Highway Administration, he was the first African-American administrator in the agency's century-long history. He created 160,000 NHS and intermodal connections, and oversaw development of an innovative financing program that resulted in hundreds of transportation projects being completed two to three years ahead of schedule.

A 1980 graduate from the University of Arkansas School of Law, Slater served as director of governmental relations for Arkansas State University from 1987 to 1992; and as executive assistant for economic and community programs for then-Gov. Clinton from 1983 to 1987.

At Eastern Michigan, the three-year varsity football letter-winner was the 1976 top scholar-athlete on the football team. While serving as captain, he rushed for 562 yards and finished his career with 1,330 career yards. Slater was a member of Eastern Michigan's 1997 national forensics champion team and was a two-time all-Mid-American Conference academic choice.

Among his many civic activities, Slater is a member of the American Bar Association, Arkansas Bar Association, National Bar Association, W. Harold Flowers Law Society, board of directors of the Joint Center on Political and Economic Studies and the Arkansas Sesquicentennial Commission. He also headed the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC), an annual fund-raising drive conducted by federal employees, that helped raise more than $130 million for nonprofit organizations from 1997 to 2001.