A.Q. Shipley named to Rimington watch list
Penn State junior center A.Q. Shipley has been named to the Spring Watch List for the 2007 Rimington Trophy. Shipley was one of 18 juniors and five Big Ten players among the 46 players nationwide named to the watch list for the trophy which is in its eighth year recognizing the most outstanding center in college football.
The winner is selected by determining the consensus All-American center pick from four existing All America Teams including: the American Football Coaches Association, the Walter Camp Foundation, the Sporting News and the Football Writers Association of America. The center with the most first team votes will be determined the winner and will be honored at an awards banquet at the Rococo Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska in January of 2008.
Murphy earns award for overcoming odds
Penn State Nittany Lion wrestler Rohan Murphy will be honored with the 2007 Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Award. Murphy is one of five nationwide honorees.
The National Association of Academic Advisors for Athletics (N4A) presents the award, as it has done annually since 1991. It is named in honor of Wilma Rudolph whose life is a story of achieving against the odds.
The award named in her honor recognizes student athletes who have overcome great personal, academic, and/or emotional odds to achieve academic and athletic success while participating in intercollegiate athletics. Award winners may not the best athletes or students and therefore may not have been recognized by other organizations or awards. Nonetheless, they have persevered and made significant personal strides toward success. The common thread for each year's recipients is motivation or drive to succeed and the work ethic that overcomes difficult situations.
Murphy, who received a B.S. in Kinesiology in December 2006 and is pursuing an M.S. in Health, Policy and Administration, is a double bilateral-amputee.
PSU student-athletes earning high marks
Penn State student-athletes continue to make better progress toward graduation in comparison with the nation's Division I institutions, despite higher academic standards than required, according to data released yesterday by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
Nine Penn State teams earned a perfect Academic Progress Rate (APR) score of 1,000 during 2005-06 and three teams have a three-year APR score of 1,000 -- women's golf, women's lacrosse and women's tennis. Less than 10 percent of the nation's 6,110 teams earned a three-year APR score of 1,000.
Among Penn State's 29 varsity teams, 22 have a three-year APR score above the Division I average for their respective sports. The NCAA did not release institutional APR rates for 2005-06 or the three-year rate.
