National Collegiate Athletic Association
NCAA News Archive - 2007
« back to 2007 | Back to NCAA News Archive Index
Honoring the mission
|
By Leilana McKindra
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
The origins of the NCAA Honors Awards and Honors Celebration are anything but humble.
In fact, it all began as part of the Association’s 60th anniversary celebration during the 1966 NCAA Convention in Washington, D.C. What started as an enthusiastic recognition of the Association’s diamond anniversary has grown into the Honors Celebration, a cherished annual gathering of the NCAA’s best and brightest and a powerful testament to the NCAA’s mission of promoting intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of higher education.
What better way to tell the NCAA story than through the eyes of its student-athletes? Doing so helps keep the focus on the message — and the reality — that the overwhelming majority of student-athletes go on to become successful, contributing members of their communities and in the broader society.
“The honorees are the epitome of what everyone who works in athletics strives to be,” said John Johnson, who helped oversee the Honors Celebration for eight years until he accepted a position with Short’s Travel this spring. “They have demonstrated an ability to balance being student-athletes, and they are well on their way or have a history of contributing to society as leaders. That’s the value of the program.”
The list of recipients is long and impressive. Populated by U.S. presidents, dignitaries, professional sports figures, entertainers and business executives, it contains a multitude of easily recognizable names such as Bill Cosby, John Wooden, George H. W. Bush, Jack Nicklaus, Sally Ride and Joan Benoit Samuelson.
But it’s much more than celebrity status that earns the recognition. For instance, Paul Tagliabue, the 2007 Theodore Roosevelt Award winner, wasn’t chosen because he was a longtime commissioner of the NFL; rather, he is a former student-athlete who contributed to society.
Program evolution
Since the NCAA staged the Diamond Jubilee Luncheon at the 1966 NCAA Convention and recognized 51 former student-athletes who became public officials, including U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, and Congressmen Gerald R. Ford and Donald Rumsfeld, the Honors Luncheon has matured into the Honors Dinner, which was renamed as the Honors Celebration in 2006.
The number and scope of awards also has expanded. Four months after that first luncheon, the NCAA Executive Committee established the Theodore Roosevelt Award “to honor a citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment who earned a varsity athletics award in college and has demonstrated a continuing interest in physical fitness and intercollegiate athletics.” The next year, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general and the 34th president of the United States, was named as the inaugural recipient of the “Teddy,” the Association’s highest honor.
In 1973, the Silver Anniversary and Today’s Top V Awards were introduced. The Silvers recognized distinguished student-athletes on their 25th anniversary as college graduates, while the Top V honored outstanding senior student-athletes from the preceding calendar year. Both categories were expanded from five to six recipients in 1986. The Top V became the current Top VIII in 1995.
Two special awards that are not necessarily awarded annually were added later. The Award of Valor, presented based on heroic action, and the Inspiration Award, based on inspirational action, were created in 1974 and 2002, respectively.
As the awards program has evolved, so, too, have the recipients. Jack Ford, an award winner himself and former Honors Committee member who has served as emcee for the Honors Celebration several times, noted the emergence of women in collegiate athletics and as award recipients. The first full class of women arrived at Yale University during Ford’s junior year as a football student-athlete at the institution, and he remembers witnessing their meager athletics existence at the school.
“You look back and see how hard it was for those pioneer women to create their own teams, literally and figuratively,” said Ford. “As an honoree, as someone who sat on the committee that selected honorees, and as an emcee of the event, it’s been interesting to see the inclusion of women. What has happened in the student-athlete landscape is that it’s not an exception. It’s part of the fabric of the awards — as it should be.”
From dinner to event
The format of the event has undergone change as well. Feedback from attendees and participants led organizers to move away from having honorees sit at a long dais throughout the event, which segregated them from their families and other guests.
“Allowing them to sit with their friends, families and institutional people just brought more intimacy to the event and made it more valuable to those who were being honors,” said Kellie Leeman, NCAA assistant director of brand strategies and events, who has been involved with the honors program for eight years.
It also became clear that audience members wanted to hear and see the honorees rather than simply eat dinner.
In 2006, the celebration was held in a theatre, and it was the first time each recipient addressed the crowd. Previously, one recipient each award category spoke on behalf of the other winners.
Ultimately, said Johnson, the goal of organizers has increasingly become to ensure that every aspect of the event, including the format and stage design, focuses squarely on the honorees.
The NCAA isn’t the only one focusing on these outstanding past and current student-athletes, however. As the NCAA honors program has expanded its scope, the college athletics landscape has become crowded with other awards for which the same student-athletes are recognized. In addition, the NCAA’s Leeman noted that the increasingly robust Convention schedule has forced people to choose whether to attend the Honors Celebration. However, though it is admittedly tougher for the awards to stand out and for organizers to entice attendees and publicity, the consensus is that their stature and importance remain high in the eyes of the honorees and the membership.
Tim Gleason, current chair of the Honors Committee and commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, said the awards are a welcome break from debating issues, solving problems and arguing legislation. The Honors Celebration is a time when the Association can set aside its business to honor the outstanding men and women who make the NCAA what it is.
“The Honors Celebration is still the highlight of the NCAA year,” he said.
Ford said that whenever people ask him for his bio, the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award goes first — even before the Emmy and Peabody Awards he has also collected over the course of his career.
“The great thing about the NCAA awards is that they recognize your excellence as an athlete, which was so important to you, and then in a sort of transcendent fashion, they also recognize your accomplishments in your chosen profession,” said Ford, who earned his law degree from Fordham University and has gone on to co-anchor Good Morning, America and 20/20. “There are not too many awards that encompass the entire scope of your life as these NCAA awards do.”
In many ways, Ford said, the awards are the most visible highlight for the NCAA in terms of mission.
“The student-athlete group is populated almost entirely by these talented, dedicated, accomplished young people,” Ford said. “When we get to shine this spotlight on the very highest echelon, either present or former, it helps to buttress the mission of the NCAA and make it more apparent to the public how important the mission is and how marvelously talented these student-athletes are.”
The NCAA began presenting the Theodore Roosevelt Award in 1967. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s son, John, accepted the first “Teddy” on his father’s behalf.
The Today’s VIII Award honorees share their viewpoints during the 2007 Honors Celebration. The honor recognizes outstanding senior student-athletes from the previous calendar year. The award, which was introduced in 1973, was known as the Today’s Top V until 1985 and the Top VI from 1986-94.
In fact, it all began as part of the Association’s 60th anniversary celebration during the 1966 NCAA Convention in Washington, D.C. What started as an enthusiastic recognition of the Association’s diamond anniversary has grown into the Honors Celebration, a cherished annual gathering of the NCAA’s best and brightest and a powerful testament to the NCAA’s mission of promoting intercollegiate athletics as an integral part of higher education.
What better way to tell the NCAA story than through the eyes of its student-athletes? Doing so helps keep the focus on the message — and the reality — that the overwhelming majority of student-athletes go on to become successful, contributing members of their communities and in the broader society.
“The honorees are the epitome of what everyone who works in athletics strives to be,” said John Johnson, who helped oversee the Honors Celebration for eight years until he accepted a position with Short’s Travel this spring. “They have demonstrated an ability to balance being student-athletes, and they are well on their way or have a history of contributing to society as leaders. That’s the value of the program.”
The list of recipients is long and impressive. Populated by U.S. presidents, dignitaries, professional sports figures, entertainers and business executives, it contains a multitude of easily recognizable names such as Bill Cosby, John Wooden, George H. W. Bush, Jack Nicklaus, Sally Ride and Joan Benoit Samuelson.
But it’s much more than celebrity status that earns the recognition. For instance, Paul Tagliabue, the 2007 Theodore Roosevelt Award winner, wasn’t chosen because he was a longtime commissioner of the NFL; rather, he is a former student-athlete who contributed to society.
Program evolution
Since the NCAA staged the Diamond Jubilee Luncheon at the 1966 NCAA Convention and recognized 51 former student-athletes who became public officials, including U.S. Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, and Congressmen Gerald R. Ford and Donald Rumsfeld, the Honors Luncheon has matured into the Honors Dinner, which was renamed as the Honors Celebration in 2006.
The number and scope of awards also has expanded. Four months after that first luncheon, the NCAA Executive Committee established the Theodore Roosevelt Award “to honor a citizen of national reputation and outstanding accomplishment who earned a varsity athletics award in college and has demonstrated a continuing interest in physical fitness and intercollegiate athletics.” The next year, Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general and the 34th president of the United States, was named as the inaugural recipient of the “Teddy,” the Association’s highest honor.
In 1973, the Silver Anniversary and Today’s Top V Awards were introduced. The Silvers recognized distinguished student-athletes on their 25th anniversary as college graduates, while the Top V honored outstanding senior student-athletes from the preceding calendar year. Both categories were expanded from five to six recipients in 1986. The Top V became the current Top VIII in 1995.
Two special awards that are not necessarily awarded annually were added later. The Award of Valor, presented based on heroic action, and the Inspiration Award, based on inspirational action, were created in 1974 and 2002, respectively.
As the awards program has evolved, so, too, have the recipients. Jack Ford, an award winner himself and former Honors Committee member who has served as emcee for the Honors Celebration several times, noted the emergence of women in collegiate athletics and as award recipients. The first full class of women arrived at Yale University during Ford’s junior year as a football student-athlete at the institution, and he remembers witnessing their meager athletics existence at the school.
“You look back and see how hard it was for those pioneer women to create their own teams, literally and figuratively,” said Ford. “As an honoree, as someone who sat on the committee that selected honorees, and as an emcee of the event, it’s been interesting to see the inclusion of women. What has happened in the student-athlete landscape is that it’s not an exception. It’s part of the fabric of the awards — as it should be.”
From dinner to event
The format of the event has undergone change as well. Feedback from attendees and participants led organizers to move away from having honorees sit at a long dais throughout the event, which segregated them from their families and other guests.
“Allowing them to sit with their friends, families and institutional people just brought more intimacy to the event and made it more valuable to those who were being honors,” said Kellie Leeman, NCAA assistant director of brand strategies and events, who has been involved with the honors program for eight years.
It also became clear that audience members wanted to hear and see the honorees rather than simply eat dinner.
In 2006, the celebration was held in a theatre, and it was the first time each recipient addressed the crowd. Previously, one recipient each award category spoke on behalf of the other winners.
Ultimately, said Johnson, the goal of organizers has increasingly become to ensure that every aspect of the event, including the format and stage design, focuses squarely on the honorees.
The NCAA isn’t the only one focusing on these outstanding past and current student-athletes, however. As the NCAA honors program has expanded its scope, the college athletics landscape has become crowded with other awards for which the same student-athletes are recognized. In addition, the NCAA’s Leeman noted that the increasingly robust Convention schedule has forced people to choose whether to attend the Honors Celebration. However, though it is admittedly tougher for the awards to stand out and for organizers to entice attendees and publicity, the consensus is that their stature and importance remain high in the eyes of the honorees and the membership.
Tim Gleason, current chair of the Honors Committee and commissioner of the Ohio Valley Conference, said the awards are a welcome break from debating issues, solving problems and arguing legislation. The Honors Celebration is a time when the Association can set aside its business to honor the outstanding men and women who make the NCAA what it is.
“The Honors Celebration is still the highlight of the NCAA year,” he said.
Ford said that whenever people ask him for his bio, the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award goes first — even before the Emmy and Peabody Awards he has also collected over the course of his career.
“The great thing about the NCAA awards is that they recognize your excellence as an athlete, which was so important to you, and then in a sort of transcendent fashion, they also recognize your accomplishments in your chosen profession,” said Ford, who earned his law degree from Fordham University and has gone on to co-anchor Good Morning, America and 20/20. “There are not too many awards that encompass the entire scope of your life as these NCAA awards do.”
In many ways, Ford said, the awards are the most visible highlight for the NCAA in terms of mission.
“The student-athlete group is populated almost entirely by these talented, dedicated, accomplished young people,” Ford said. “When we get to shine this spotlight on the very highest echelon, either present or former, it helps to buttress the mission of the NCAA and make it more apparent to the public how important the mission is and how marvelously talented these student-athletes are.”
The NCAA began presenting the Theodore Roosevelt Award in 1967. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s son, John, accepted the first “Teddy” on his father’s behalf.
The Today’s VIII Award honorees share their viewpoints during the 2007 Honors Celebration. The honor recognizes outstanding senior student-athletes from the previous calendar year. The award, which was introduced in 1973, was known as the Today’s Top V until 1985 and the Top VI from 1986-94.
© 2010 The National Collegiate Athletic Association
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Policy