Four Brandeis student-athletes were named to the University Athletic Association (UAA) President’s Scholar-Athlete Team this July. Athletes must achieve higher than a 3.50 GPA and receive first-team All-Association Honors in order to be given the recognition. Three graduated seniors in the class of 2017 and one rising senior in the class of 2018 were recognized.
The recognition originated in 2009, when the UAA sought to establish a greater recognition for both athletic and academic excellence. Prior to 2009, all athletes with higher than a 3.30 GPA were awarded Academic All-American recognition, which extended to nearly 56 percent of eligible student athletes in the UAA.
With the President’s Scholar-Athlete recognition, the award more directly recognizes “the combination of academic and athletic excellence that is the core of the UAA philosophy,” said Dick Rasmussen, a UAA Executive.
Brian Granoff ’17 received the recognition for his success on the men’s tennis team at the No. 2 spot last season. The player’s illustrious career included 106 total wins (the second all-time in head coach Benjamin Lamanna’s tenure) and leading the team to its highest ranking since 1989 at #19 as the team’s captain. Granoff graduated with a degree in economics and a minor in business, exiting his Brandeis academic career with a 3.65 GPA.
Mitchell Hutton ’18 was named to the Scholar-Athlete Team after achieving first-team All-Association Honors in cross-country. Hutton ran a time of 24:54.34 in last October’s conference championships, which secured him the fourth place spot as well as the All-Association Honors. The rising senior will be starting his final season soon, entering the year with 3.77 GPA and double majoring in biology and business.
Leading the women’s basketball team in scoring, steals, rebounding and blocked shots, Maria Jackson ’17 also secured recognition to the President’s Scholar-Athlete team. She helped her team to a 13-12 record for her senior year season, and her successes earned her the first-team All-UAA forward/center. The alumna graduated Brandeis with a 3.66 GPA, majoring in Linguistics with a minor in French.
Cidney Moscovitch ’17, who led the women’s soccer team to its first ever Final Four berth, also secured a position on the President’s Scholar Athlete Team. She scored seven goals and had five assists in her final season, where the team finalized their season at 16-3-3. Against UAA opponents, Moscovitch had a very successful last season, scoring four goals and helping out with two other assists, which led the entire UAA in points. Moscovitch also finished her career fourth in Brandeis athletics history in game-winning goals, earning ten throughout her four years on the team. She graduated with a GPA of 3.65 and degrees in biology and anthropology and a minor in chemistry.
The UAA is a particularly strong conference academically, with the average cumulative GPA of its athletes approximately equal to the average cumulative GPA of the entire student population. The recognition Granoff, Hutton, Jackson and Moscovitch received is one of the highest distinctions in the scholar-athlete realm.
