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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Honors recipients position NCAA for future success
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By Leilana McKindra
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
ORLANDO, Florida — Long before former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was selected as this year’s recipient of the NCAA’s highest honor, the Theodore Roosevelt Award, he was counseled by former Dallas Cowboys president Tex Schramm that he’d never be a success unless he was a person like Teddy Roosevelt.
At the time, Tagliabue was just beginning his nearly four-decade association with the NFL as a young attorney working on league matters. Since then, he has obviously gone on to enjoy much success in the league’s top spot. In accepting the “Teddy” at the annual Honors Celebration during the 2007 NCAA Convention, Tagliabue called the recognition “a great honor” and said that it would make Schramm happy because it confirms that he took the veteran’s advice to heart.
Tagliabue, who was one of 17 current and former student-athletes honored January 7, also reflected on his student-athlete experience at Georgetown University, noting his excitement about his academic and athletics prospects when he arrived on the campus in 1958.
“My four years at Georgetown began a process of personal transformation and gave me a foundation of very special values that have enriched my life ever since,” he said. “By my senior year, my most memorable basketball game was at Madison Square Garden, but it was memorable for a different reason than you might expect. I missed the game because I was at a Rhodes Scholar finals competition. I think the Washington Star wrote a headline saying that because I wasn’t there, Georgetown won.”
As it turns out, Tagliabue didn’t earn a Rhodes Scholarship, but he did land a full ride to the New York University School of Law.
Looking ahead in intercollegiate athletics, Tagliabue expressed confidence that core values such as amateurism, academic performance and sportsmanship would continue to be honored.
“I also am confident there will be continued advances and access to the intercollegiate experience, diversity and the equitable participation of men and women in all sports. That is a future we can all strive to secure,” he said.
Much of the responsibility for seeing Tagliabue’s vision become reality will fall to student-athletes like those who were honored as the 2007 Today’s Top VIII. For the second straight year, Honors Celebration attendees had a chance to hear from each of those eight standouts — and the six Silver Anniversary Award winners — on a range of topics during a question-and-answer session led by emcee and former Silver winner Jack Ford.
In response to a question about how diversity helps teams perform, Top VIII honoree Adrianne Musu Jackson-Buckner, a former field hockey and track student-athlete at State University College at Oneonta, said diversity goes well beyond race. She cited diversity in sport, individual backgrounds and composition of teams as valuable to the college athletics learning experience.
The rest of the Today’s Top VIII include Alison Crocker, Dartmouth College; Laura Gerraughty, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ryan Koch, St. Cloud State University; Beth Mallory, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Heather O’Reilly, North Carolina; Catherine Osterman, University of Texas at Austin; and Kate Richardson, University of California, Los Angeles.
Former Auburn University swimming standout and 2007 Silver Anniversary Award winner Rowdy Gaines also spoke about how intercollegiate athletics has enriched his life.
“The sport of swimming has given me so much,” Gaines said. “When you talk about words like ‘perseverance,’ ‘dedication’ and ‘commitment,’ I learned so much at Auburn. I really grew from a boy to a man there. It was a life-changing experience. All of those different aspects that I learned in college really carried over into my life.”
Other Silver honorees were Gail (Koziara) Boudreaux, Dartmouth; Steve Jordan, Brown University; Patricia Melton, Yale University; Ann Woods Smith, University of Florida; and Bill Stetson, University of Southern California.
The evening was bittersweet for Steve Hines, father of Award of Valor recipient Derek Hines, a former ice hockey student-athlete at the U.S. Military Academy who was killed in action in Afghanistan.
“Of course I wish I were not up here tonight accepting this award on behalf of my son. This is not how the Derek Hines story was supposed to end nor was it meant to end so soon,” Steven Hines said. “Unfortunately, we can’t turn back the clock. This award helps ensure the legacy of Derek Hines will go on for many years.”
Hines also shared some of his son’s war journal writings. “Derek Hines was never about Derek the individual. When Derek was on a team, it was always about the team. Derek carried the lessons he learned in sports to commanding his soldiers. Lessons instilled by his coaches and fellow players showed Derek how to lead and also how to be led,” he said.
2007 Inspiration Award winner David Denniston’s swimming career was cut short in 2005 when he damaged his spine in a sledding accident in Wyoming. As a result, Denniston, who had been a 1999 NCAA champion and member of the U.S. National Team that competed in the 200-meter breaststroke in the 2003 World Championships, was paralyzed from the waist down. However, he said his desire to see friends be successful has been a life-long commitment.
Denniston said the most intense part of swimming is the relays because each swimmer depends on the others. He compared those past relay experiences to his current work with “Project Walk,” an exercise-based recovery program for people with spinal-cord injuries.
“Those people are absolutely phenomenal athletes and I want nothing more than to see them be successful,” said Denniston, who also is a motivational speaker. “I had a friend who said, ‘Dave, you inspire all of us because you want to walk out of here with a bunch of people walking behind you.’ He almost had it right. I want to walk out of there behind all my friends walking ahead of me. I’ll do everything I can to raise money to support my friends.”
ESPN2 will broadcast the 2007 Honors Celebration at 2 p.m. Eastern time February 2.
At the time, Tagliabue was just beginning his nearly four-decade association with the NFL as a young attorney working on league matters. Since then, he has obviously gone on to enjoy much success in the league’s top spot. In accepting the “Teddy” at the annual Honors Celebration during the 2007 NCAA Convention, Tagliabue called the recognition “a great honor” and said that it would make Schramm happy because it confirms that he took the veteran’s advice to heart.
Tagliabue, who was one of 17 current and former student-athletes honored January 7, also reflected on his student-athlete experience at Georgetown University, noting his excitement about his academic and athletics prospects when he arrived on the campus in 1958.
“My four years at Georgetown began a process of personal transformation and gave me a foundation of very special values that have enriched my life ever since,” he said. “By my senior year, my most memorable basketball game was at Madison Square Garden, but it was memorable for a different reason than you might expect. I missed the game because I was at a Rhodes Scholar finals competition. I think the Washington Star wrote a headline saying that because I wasn’t there, Georgetown won.”
As it turns out, Tagliabue didn’t earn a Rhodes Scholarship, but he did land a full ride to the New York University School of Law.
Looking ahead in intercollegiate athletics, Tagliabue expressed confidence that core values such as amateurism, academic performance and sportsmanship would continue to be honored.
“I also am confident there will be continued advances and access to the intercollegiate experience, diversity and the equitable participation of men and women in all sports. That is a future we can all strive to secure,” he said.
Much of the responsibility for seeing Tagliabue’s vision become reality will fall to student-athletes like those who were honored as the 2007 Today’s Top VIII. For the second straight year, Honors Celebration attendees had a chance to hear from each of those eight standouts — and the six Silver Anniversary Award winners — on a range of topics during a question-and-answer session led by emcee and former Silver winner Jack Ford.
In response to a question about how diversity helps teams perform, Top VIII honoree Adrianne Musu Jackson-Buckner, a former field hockey and track student-athlete at State University College at Oneonta, said diversity goes well beyond race. She cited diversity in sport, individual backgrounds and composition of teams as valuable to the college athletics learning experience.
The rest of the Today’s Top VIII include Alison Crocker, Dartmouth College; Laura Gerraughty, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Ryan Koch, St. Cloud State University; Beth Mallory, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Heather O’Reilly, North Carolina; Catherine Osterman, University of Texas at Austin; and Kate Richardson, University of California, Los Angeles.
Former Auburn University swimming standout and 2007 Silver Anniversary Award winner Rowdy Gaines also spoke about how intercollegiate athletics has enriched his life.
“The sport of swimming has given me so much,” Gaines said. “When you talk about words like ‘perseverance,’ ‘dedication’ and ‘commitment,’ I learned so much at Auburn. I really grew from a boy to a man there. It was a life-changing experience. All of those different aspects that I learned in college really carried over into my life.”
Other Silver honorees were Gail (Koziara) Boudreaux, Dartmouth; Steve Jordan, Brown University; Patricia Melton, Yale University; Ann Woods Smith, University of Florida; and Bill Stetson, University of Southern California.
The evening was bittersweet for Steve Hines, father of Award of Valor recipient Derek Hines, a former ice hockey student-athlete at the U.S. Military Academy who was killed in action in Afghanistan.
“Of course I wish I were not up here tonight accepting this award on behalf of my son. This is not how the Derek Hines story was supposed to end nor was it meant to end so soon,” Steven Hines said. “Unfortunately, we can’t turn back the clock. This award helps ensure the legacy of Derek Hines will go on for many years.”
Hines also shared some of his son’s war journal writings. “Derek Hines was never about Derek the individual. When Derek was on a team, it was always about the team. Derek carried the lessons he learned in sports to commanding his soldiers. Lessons instilled by his coaches and fellow players showed Derek how to lead and also how to be led,” he said.
2007 Inspiration Award winner David Denniston’s swimming career was cut short in 2005 when he damaged his spine in a sledding accident in Wyoming. As a result, Denniston, who had been a 1999 NCAA champion and member of the U.S. National Team that competed in the 200-meter breaststroke in the 2003 World Championships, was paralyzed from the waist down. However, he said his desire to see friends be successful has been a life-long commitment.
Denniston said the most intense part of swimming is the relays because each swimmer depends on the others. He compared those past relay experiences to his current work with “Project Walk,” an exercise-based recovery program for people with spinal-cord injuries.
“Those people are absolutely phenomenal athletes and I want nothing more than to see them be successful,” said Denniston, who also is a motivational speaker. “I had a friend who said, ‘Dave, you inspire all of us because you want to walk out of here with a bunch of people walking behind you.’ He almost had it right. I want to walk out of there behind all my friends walking ahead of me. I’ll do everything I can to raise money to support my friends.”
ESPN2 will broadcast the 2007 Honors Celebration at 2 p.m. Eastern time February 2.
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