The NCAA has chosen six former standout student-athletes as 2007 Silver Anniversary Award winners. The award recognizes former student-athletes who have successfully finished their collegiate careers in various sports 25 years ago and gone on to excel in their chosen careers.

This year’s honorees will be recognized at the NCAA Honors Celebration January 7 during the 2007 NCAA Convention in Orlando.

Winners were chosen by the NCAA Honors Committee, which is composed of athletics administrators and nationally distinguished citizens who also were former student-athletes. The 2007 Silver Anniversary Award honorees are: Gail (Koziara) Boudreaux (Dartmouth College, basketball and track and field), Steve Jordan (Brown University, football), Patricia Melton (Yale University, indoor and outdoor track and field), Rowdy Gaines (Auburn University, swimming and diving), Ann Woods Smith (University of Florida, gymnastics) and Bill Stetson (University of Southern California, volleyball).

Following are biographical sketches of this year’s award winners.

A four-time first team All-Ivy Group selection and three-time Ivy Player of the Year, Boudreaux’s success on the basketball court led to her being named an Ivy Group Silver Anniversary women’s basketball team member. Boudreaux still holds 23 school records at Dartmouth, including career scoring (1,933 points) and career rebounds (1,635). In addition to being a standout on the basketball court, she also was an all-American shot putter.

While on campus, Boudreaux was one of four student members of the Dartmouth College Athletic Council and an English tutor for the intensive Academic Support Program. A member of the Green Key Society service organization, she held leadership positions in the Aquinas House Catholic Student Center and was a volunteer at Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children.

After graduating from Dartmouth, she earned an MBA in finance and health care administration from Columbia Business School. Boudreaux joined Aetna in 1982, holding several managerial positions, eventually becoming senior vice president responsible for Aetna, Incorporated’s Group Insurance Business.

In 2002, Boudreaux joined Health Care Service Corporation as president of the Illinois Division. Today, she is the executive vice president for external operations for Health Care Services Corporation, overseeing the corporation’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas as well as the corporation’s subsidiaries, including Fort Dearborn Life, Colorado Bankers Life and Dental Network of America.

A first-team all-Ivy Group selection in 1980 and 1981, Jordan was a three-year starter and was named Associated Press honorable mention all-American in 1980. He set school game and season records for receiving yards and finished his career as Brown’s third all-time receiver with 1,330 yards.

Jordan graduated in 1982 with a degree in engineering. A member of the Minnesota Vikings from 1982 to 1994, Jordan was a six-time all-Pro selection at tight end (1987-92) and was recognized as a member of the Vikings’ 40th Anniversary Team. He also served as the team’s players’ union representative in salary and contract negotiations.

Jordan currently serves as senior project manager for Ryan Companies Inc., with 300 employees and $400 million in reported revenue in 2002. In his current position, he coordinates client construction activities among architects, engineers, subcontractors and superintendents on Ryan Companies projects.

He established the Steve R. Jordan Endowed Scholarship for Minority Athletes at Brown in 2000. Also at Brown, he has served on the Sports Foundation Board of Directors since 1996 and is a member of the engineering department’s 150th anniversary campaign committee.

The 1982 Ivy Group Player of the Year, Melton received Yale’s Outstanding Senior Athlete honor, the Nellie Elliot Award. She was captain of the indoor and outdoor track teams in 1982. That same year, in addition to earning all-America recognition in outdoor track and field, she was a silver medalist at the outdoor National Collegiate Track and Field Championships and was ranked ninth in the 400-meter hurdles by U.S. Track & Field News. Melton still holds the Yale indoor track school record in the 400-meter dash and the outdoor track record in the 400-meter hurdles.

As a student-athlete at Yale with a major in Afro-American studies, Melton volunteered for the Special Olympics. She also served in the United States Marine Corps as a reservist where she was named the top Honor Graduate in her Women’s Recruit Training Command.

She is known as an innovative and entrepreneurial national education leader who assists state and community stakeholders, school districts, colleges and youth-serving nonprofit organizations in designing and developing new small high schools for under-served urban, first-generation and low-income students. Melton has been instrumental in the creation of nine new K-12 schools in three states (Washington, Ohio and Indiana). She currently is the lead school design consultant and early college high school expert for the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning.

A finalist in the 800-meters at the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials, Melton was chosen as part of the Ivy Group Silver Anniversary Team in 1994 and was selected for the Middlesex Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003.

The 1981 Southeastern Conference Athlete of the Year also is an eight-time NCAA and six-time SEC champion. In 1982, Gaines, a 22-time all-American, was named as the first recipient of the Conoco Phillips Performance Award presented by USA Swimming to the top performer in a specific event. The 17-time U.S. national champion also captured the Robert J.H. Kiphuth Award four times as the top scorer at the championships in 1981 and 1982.

A two-time Olympian, Gaines earned three gold medals in the 1984 Games. He set world records in the 100- and 200-meter freestyles. Two years after being named as Swimming World Magazine’s World Swimmer of the Year in 1980, Gaines was chosen for one of swimming’s highest honors, the McDonald’s Spirit Award. He was the World Masters champion in the 50- and 100-meter freestyles in 1992.

Gaines has served as a commentator for swimming events on CBS, TNT and ESPN. He has called four Olympics, including the 2004 Games in Athens for NBC, and also will work the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. After stints as educational outreach director for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and as vice president and general manager of Mainichi Sports USA, Gaines currently is the chief fund-raising and alumni officer for USA Swimming.

An active spokesperson for the Children’s Miracle Network and Swim Across America, an organization dedicated to raising money for and awareness of cancer, Gaines also conducts youth clinics around the country.

A seven-time all-American and two-time all-Southeastern Conference selection, Smith was the Honda Broderick Award winner as the top collegiate female gymnast in 1982. She placed third that year in the vault in the NCAA championships and captured the all-around, uneven bars and floor exercise titles at the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women championships. She is third in school history with 20 all-around victories.

The 1982 NCAA postgraduate scholarship recipient developed and implemented a comprehensive public relations campaign while a student at Florida for a municipal childcare center that resulted in a 35 percent boost in attendance and earned the National Community Service Project Award.

Since 2000, Smith has been senior director of public affairs at Medco Health Solutions, Inc., where she generates publicity campaigns. Under her leadership, the group has earned nine communication awards over the past four years. Before moving to Medco, she was a senior director for marketing communications at Nabsico, Inc. She also formerly served as women’s sports information director at Florida and worked as a sports researcher for ABC during the 1984 Summer Olympics.

A member of Southern California’s 1980 championship team, Stetson was a four-year letter-winner and later a USA Junior National Volleyball Program Team member. Named Southern California’s Most Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete and the Pacific-10 Conference Most Outstanding Scholar-Athlete, Stetson received his medical degree from the University of Southern California School of Medicine.

He played professionally on the beach and indoor circuits and was a five-time winner of the U.S. Open National Volleyball Championships as a member of Team Nike while still in medical school. He took a one year leave of absence from his medical studies to play professionally in Europe where his team won the West German Championship. He was an assistant coach at Southern California for two years and helped guide the Trojans to national runner-up finishes both times.

Stetson specializes in sports medicine with an expertise in arthroscopic and reconstructive surgery of the shoulder, knee, elbow and ankle. In addition to his medical practice, Stetson has been an associate clinical professor of orthopedic surgery in the Southern California Keck School of Medicine for more than a decade.

Serving as team physician for several high school and college teams throughout his career, Stetson is currently a consulting physician for the USA Men’s Volleyball Team. In conjunction with visits to Cuba and Haiti, Stetson recently started a nonprofit organization, Operation Arthroscopy, whose mission is to teach and provide arthroscopic surgical equipment to third-world countries.