Whitney Haller

Classroom

Haller is a three-time ACC Academic Honor Roll member and a 2007 and 2008 1st-team ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District selection.  She was also tabbed 2007 2nd-team ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-American and 2008 3rd-team ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-American.  Haller has already been accepted into grad school at Georgia Tech and will be working as a Health Systems Engineer in the Emergency Department at Emory University.  Her career goals include Hospitality Management or Pharmaceutical Management.  Currently, she has a 3.94 cum GPA and has made faculty honors five semesters here at Georgia Tech which is a 4.0 GPA .  All of her other semesters have been on Dean’s List, in fact, she has not had a grade below a “B” and her last “B” was in the fall semester of 2006.

Character

Haller is one of three seniors on a team that has just five upperclassmen total on the roster.  She helped organize the team goals for the season and worked on a project during the off-season where she had each player write down positive comments about other members of the team. She then compiled a list of positives and put in each player’s locker so they could see what their teammates thought about them.  Haller was part of a senior design team this year where she had to demonstrate her leadership abilities. The team included six students with excellent academic records but they struggled due to poor chemistry by a few of the members. According to her professor, Haller was the lightning rod that kept the group together with a display leadership, creativity, determination, relentless work and the highest ethical standards. Haller often stayed in the lab until 4 a.m. and then had early morning practice.

Community

Haller is a volunteer at Shakespeare’s Theater, a non-profit organization where she helps take tickets, serve food and clean. She also has gone to local schools and read to children, helped organize a group of volunteers to work at the Special Olympics.  She is also a volunteer at Cobb County (Ga.) high schools doing softball lessons and training and serves as a volunteer tutor in Cobb county for students.  With the Due West United Methodist Church, Haller has adopted a family for Christmas, adopted a child for Christmas, organized bookbags for back-to-school Children’s Missionary, organized Christmas boxes for Childrens Missionary and volunteered to work and sell pumpkins at Pumpkin patch throughout October.  She has also volunteered with Toys for Tots and participated in a Peanut Butter and Jelly for the Homeless program in November through the Georgia Tech housing department.

Competition

Heading into 2009 Season, Haller is only the second Tech player (Laura Williams - 1994, 1995, 1996) to earn All-ACC honors in her first three seasons.  She holds the Georgia Tech career home run record (49) and will begin the 2009 season needing one more round-tripper for the ACC mark.  Haller is econd in Tech and third in ACC history in RBI (178) and also ranks fifth in school history in batting average (.346), first in slugging percentage (.652), fifth in on base percentage (.435), third in runs scored (150), third in total bases (397), second in fielding percentage (.989), first in fielding chances (1,293) and first in putouts (1,215).  In 2006, 2007, she earned 1st-team NFCA All-Southeast Region status as well as the 2006 ACC Rookie of the Year.  She was also named 1st-team All-ACC each of those two seasons.  She is a two-time 1st-team ESPN the Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District selection, a three-time ACC Academic Honor Roll and has been listed on the USA Softball Player of the Year Watch List twice.  In 2007, she also earned ESPN.COM 2nd-team Preseason All-American status and was named to the ACC All-Tournament Team.  Last season, she was named second-team All-ACC due to her performance on the field.