Six finalists have been selected for the Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarships, which will be awarded this spring by the Association.

The $10,000 scholarships are the Association's highest academic awards.

The NCAA's Walter Byers Scholarship Committee will interview the finalists -- three male and three female -- in April. Two recipients will be selected.

The women's finalists are Kimberly Ann Black, a swimming and diving student-athlete at the University of Georgia; Andrea Dutoit, a track and field participant from the University of Arizona; and Jill Ashley Razor, a basketball player from Rollins College.

Black is a first-team Verizon Academic All-American and an accomplished Olympic athlete, having won a gold medal for the United States in the 2000 Games at Sydney in the 800-meter freestyle relay. She also is a captain for Georgia's two-time national champion women's swimming and diving team.

Dutoit is a two-time Verizon Academic All-American and a consistent point producer at NCAA track and field championships. She placed sixth in the pole vault in last year's outdoor championship after placing 12th and 14th at the indoor nationals in 2000 and 1999, respectively.

Razor was the 2000 Sunshine State Conference player of the year and captained a Rollins team that went a combined 76-14 from 1997-98 to 1999-00 and won two league titles. Her 41-point performance in a game is a school record.

The men's finalists are Bradley James Henderson, a basketball player from the University of Chicago; Alfred Ameen Mansour III, a swimming and diving student-athlete at Texas A&M University, College Station; and James P. Sostak, a baseball student-athlete at Benedictine University.

Henderson was named a Rhodes Scholar this year and will study economic and social history at the University of Oxford in England. His Chicago basketball team earned NCAA tournament berths in 1997, 1998 and 2000.

Mansour is a five-time swimming all-American, an NCAA championships participant and a member of Texas A&M's Big 12 Conference champion 200-yard freestyle relay team. He also earned the university's John B. Beckham Award for excellence in science.

Sostak was named Benedictine's most outstanding baseball player in 2000 and holds an all-NCAA divisions record of 15 consecutive hits. He also was the president of the school's biological honors society.

Each Byers scholar receives a $10,000 scholarship from the NCAA. 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 must have 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.