Two-Sport Athlete Nominated for Academic, Athletic, and Community Excellence

HADLEY, Mass. - Grace Moore (Groton, Mass.), a 2008 graduate of Bowdoin College and a former member of the Polar Bears’ women’s soccer and women’s lacrosse squads, has been nominated for the 2008 NCAA Woman of the Year Award by the NESCAC.

The NCAA Woman of the Year Award honors senior student-athletes who have distinguished themselves throughout their collegiate careers in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership. The award has been given annually since 1991.

A two-sport captain during her final season with the Polar Bears, Moore’s defensive presence was felt on the field by Bowdoin’s opponents. She was named to the Women’s Soccer All-Conference Second Team as a defender in 2006 before helping the Polar Bears make their first-ever appearance in the final of the NESCAC Women’s Soccer Championship in 2007. Bowdoin went on to participate in the NCAA Tournament later in the fall for the first time since 2000. Moore finished her soccer career in Brunswick having played in 64 of the Polar Bears’ 65 contests, recording three goals and an assist.

As a member of the Polar Bears’ women’s lacrosse team, Moore was a two-time All-NESCAC First Team selection (2006, 2007) on defense and a Second Team All-American in 2007. She accumulated 24 goals and 10 assists for 34 points while scooping up 117 ground balls, recording 82 draw controls, and causing 72 turnovers in 63 career games. Bowdoin reached the final of the NESCAC Women’s Lacrosse Championship for the first time in program history during Moore’s sophomore campaign and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in 2005 and 2006.

Moore received her degree in sociology and environmental studies from Bowdoin this spring, graduating with a 3.81 grade point average. She earned NESCAC All-Academic a total of four times, twice in the fall with the women’s soccer team (2006, 2007) and twice in the spring with women’s lacrosse (2007, 2008). In addition, Moore was named an IWLCA Academic All-American in 2007 and again in 2008, and was recognized as a Sarah and James Bowdoin Scholar in each of the last three years.

Service to the campus, local, and global communities has been an integral part of Moore’s life. While at Bowdoin, she served on the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) for three years and was a liaison for the NESCAC SAAC during 2007-08. Moore also helped coordinate Habitat for Humanity service projects for Bowdoin athletic teams, volunteered to organize the annual Girls and Women in Sports Day sponsored by the Bowdoin athletic department, participated in the college’s young alumni leadership program, and ran the Mt. Ararat High School Mentoring Program in Topsham, Maine, matching Bowdoin students with youths in need of mentoring. During January of 2007, Moore participated in an alternative winter break program, traveling to Peru to help construct a playground for impoverished children. The experience inspired her, and in the summer later that year she received a grant from the Preston Public Interest Career Fund for an internship to work on sustainable development in indigenous communities in Ecuador.

Moore was selected by a committee of conference administrators to represent the NESCAC from a field of talented student-athletes that included Brittany Sasser (Belmont, Mass.) of Amherst, Kristina Miner (Suffield, Conn.) of Trinity, Cat Beck (Brookline, N.H.) of Tufts, and Marcia Whitehead (Cambridge, Mass.) of Wesleyan.

Sasser piled up the awards and the records during her four-year tenure as part of the Amherst women’s swimming & diving team. She collected a total of 13 NCAA individual and relay titles and 21 NESCAC crowns while finishing her career with four NCAA records, eight NESCAC overall records, seven NESCAC Championship records, nine Amherst program records, and six Amherst pool records. A team captain in 2007-08, Sasser was named the NESCAC Swimmer of the Meet in 2007 and shared the Four-Year High Point Swimmer award in 2008 along with twice earning NCAA Swimmer of the Meet honors (2007, 2008). She also received 27 All-NESCAC honors, has been recognized as an All-American 26 times, and was a finalist for the 2007-08 Honda Award, which is awarded to the top Division III college female athlete. Sasser earned the Howard Hill Mossman award, given annually to a member of the Amherst senior class that has brought the greatest honor in athletics to the college in their four years in the areas of achievement, citizenship, and sportsmanship. She was also a four-year member of the Sabrinas Acapella group and graduated from Amherst with a degree in anthropology.

Miner captained the Bantams’ cross country and indoor and outdoor track & field teams during her final season at Trinity. She was an All-NESCAC track & field recipient in 2004 in the 1,500-meter and again in 2005 in the 800-meter, claiming All-America recognition during the indoor season in the 800. Miner was honored in 2006 with the Connecticut Sportswriters’ Alliance Bob Casey Courage Award and earned the Most Valuable Female Athlete Award from the Trinity Club of Hartford in 2008. Graduating from Trinity in May with a degree in public policy and law, Miner garnered NESCAC All-Academic accolades in the fall of 2005 and 2007 along with the winter and spring of 2008. In addition, she was named an Academic All-American in cross country (2004) and indoor and outdoor track & field (2005) and is a member of Pi Gamma Mu, an international honor society in social sciences. Miner’s impact was also felt in the campus and local communities. Among the multitude of activities she participated in, Miner was a residential assistant for three years and worked in the Office of Campus Life at Trinity, participated in the Trinity SAAC during her sophomore year, served as a mentor to incoming Trinity first year students, volunteered for the Rotary Club in Suffield during special events, and teamed up with other Bantam athletes to help local kids at magnet schools in understanding the importance of goals.

A member of the Jumbos’ cross country and indoor and outdoor track & field teams throughout her four years at Tufts, Beck left Medford with a long list of accomplishments, both inside and outside of the classroom. Beck graduated cum laude with a degree in geology and archaeology. She was selected to the NESCAC All-Academic team six times, earned Dean’s List recognition at Tufts on seven occasions, received the James D. Hume Award of Geology in 2007 and again in 2008, and was also recognized with the Tufts University Alumni Association Senior Award in 2008. Beck worked as a teaching assistant during her senior year along with being a volunteer in the Tufts admissions office in her first year, and acted as a guide at the Harvard Museum of Natural History as a sophomore. The two-time cross country captain (2006, 2007) claimed All-NESCAC recognition in three of her four years, earning First Team and All-America honors in her junior and senior seasons as she finished second in back-to-back NESCAC championships. On the track, Beck was a four-time indoor All-American and was part of the Jumbos’ 2008 NCAA champion distance medley relay team. The senior track captain graduated with eight program records, evenly split between indoor and outdoor, and earned two NESCAC track & field titles. She was a three-time recipient of the USTFCCCA New England Indoor Athlete of the Year (2006-08), was named to the 2007 NESCAC Cross Country All-Sportsmanship Team, and earned the Tufts Rudolph J. Fobert Multi-Sport Athlete Award in 2006 and the Top Female Athlete Award in 2007.

Whitehead was a four-year member of both the Cardinals’ women’s soccer and softball teams, serving as captain for women’s soccer in 2007 and for softball in 2007 and again in 2008. The everyday third baseman for Wesleyan closed out her career in 2008 by setting the program’s all-time hits record in a single season (51) and in a career as she helped her team reach the final game of the 2008 NESCAC Softball Championship for the first time in school history. Whitehead was named to the Softball All-NESCAC First Team in 2008 after earning a spot on the Second Team in 2007, received NFCA Regional All-America honors in 2006 and 2007, and was also a two-time Meredith J. Frummer Award winner as the Wesleyan player with the top batting average. As a defender on the women’s soccer squad, Whitehead saw action in all 55 of the Cardinals’ contests during her four seasons, recording a goal and two assists. She earned Wesleyan’s Jones Award as the most valuable player of her team three times, twice for softball (2006, 2007) and once for soccer (2007). Whitehead was also a three-year member of the Wesleyan SAAC, holding the office of president during her senior year. In the Middletown community, Whitehead tutored students at Woodrow Wilson Middle School from 2006 through 2008 and participated in a softball outreach program though which she assisted youth teams and coached clinics. She received her degree in American government & public policy in the spring and was the recipient of Wesleyan’s John W. Macy Summer Internship in Public Administration in 2007. The prize is awarded to the junior who most clearly exemplifies the characteristics associated with John Macy ’38: high intellectual ability, a capacity for sustained effort in difficult tasks, strong ethical standards, an ingrained sense of duty, and a commitment to public service as a worthy career. Whitehead utilized the internship by spending the summer of 2007 in Washington, D.C.

The 2008 NCAA Woman of the Year will be announced on October 19 in Indianapolis, Ind. More information on the award and a list of previous winners can be found at www.ncaa.org/awards/woty.