The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) has selected four winners of the NACDA Directors' Cup Postgraduate Scholarship Awards.

The four NACDA Directors' Cup Postgraduate winners are Kara Lawson, a basketball student-athlete from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Alfred Rugema, a cross country student-athlete from Abilene Christian University; Laura Rosenberger, a track and field student-athlete from Eastern Mennonite University; and Sarah Phillips, a track and field student-athlete from Oklahoma Baptist University, an NAIA institution.

The winners, chosen from 220 nominees from the NCAA Divisions I, II and III and the NAIA, each will receive a $5,000 grant to be used toward postgraduate studies. Four additional $5,000 scholarships will be awarded to a student at the institutions that win the NACDA Directors' Cup, the national all-sports competition.

To be eligible for these scholarships, student-athletes are required to have a minimum grade-point average of 3.000 (4.000 scale); have demonstrated leadership abilities within the institution or community; have been awarded athletics honors (for example, all-conference or all-America) in the varsity sport in which the student-athlete is nominated; and be in their final year of athletics eligibility.

Lawson, who will graduate magna cum laude in finance, led the Lady Vols to three NCAA Final Fours, two NCAA championship games, four Southeastern Conference regular-season titles, a record of 126-17 overall and a 54-2 mark in regular-season conference play during her four-year tenure. The 2003 Kodak All-American was a recipient of the Torchbearer Award, the highest honor available to an undergraduate at Tennessee.

Rugema became Abilene Christian's first national champion in cross country in 2000, then repeated as champion in 2002. Rugema also was a four-time all-American in indoor track and field and three times in outdoor track and field. He was the indoor national champion in the mile, setting a new national record, and he holds the outdoor school record in the 5,000 meters. His track and field teams won three indoor national titles and two outdoor national titles.

Rosenberger is a two-time pole vault champion at Eastern Mennonite in both indoor and outdoor track and field and also holds both national records. She won six Old Dominion Athletic Conference titles in the pole vault -- three indoor and three outdoor, and she also holds both the indoor and outdoor records. Rosenberger represented Team USA in the Junior World Championships in Santiago, Chile, part of the Olympic trials, and missed qualifying for the Olympics by only one-fourth of an inch.