Volleyball Columns
Senior Leadership Vital Now, Maybe More Than Ever
The Senior CLASS Award has wrapped up another year with terrific student-athletes being honored for the contributions they made to their teammates, communities, and universities.
2021-22 was a year that stacks up as one of the very best in the award’s history. Each sport had an incredibly deep and well-rounded list of student-athletes, for a multitude of reasons, that were extremely deserving of their nomination.
Leadership has always been instrumental in the world of collegiate…
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Back to School! Nominations for 2021-22 Are Now Open
With summer coming to an end, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the upcoming school year. Yes, it’s that time of the year again! The Senior CLASS Award has now opened nominations for fall sports in 2021-22!
It’s shaping up to be an incredibly memorable year and we can’t wait to get started. We anticipate even more honorable acts of service in the community, outstanding achievements in the classroom, and record-breaking performances on the field.
We hope you’ll…
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Looking Back on the 2020-21 Senior CLASS Award®
In an extremely challenging year for most, it meant so much for us to honor all of the special seniors during the 2020-21 academic school year - even more so because last year was incomplete. We knew there would need to be a change to our program with student-athletes being granted the option of an additional year of eligibility, and we welcomed the opportunity to be proactive. We encouraged all senior student-athletes, who would have normally exhausted their eligibility at the conclusion of this…
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Nominations for Seniors in 2020-21 Will Proceed
As the Senior CLASS Award continues to evolve and maneuver through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has always been our goal to recognize and honor the well-deserving senior student-athletes who represent their prestigious universities during the 2020-21 academic school year.
Nominations for the various Senior CLASS Award sports are beginning to open up and we wanted to take this opportunity to clarify how the award process will be conducted during this ever-changing time and address a frequently…
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We’re Honoring Seniors in 2020-21 - Just on a Revised Timeline
The Senior CLASS Award has proudly honored the nation’s top senior student-athletes for 18 years. We’ve presented awards to many amazing young stars, some of which have gone on to professional sports careers and others who have been just as successful pursuing other paths in life.
The award launched in 2002 with the inspiring story of Shane Battier, the urging of the late, great Dick Enberg and a group of executives who moved forward with the idea. It has grown immensely into…
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2017-18 Senior CLASS Award Highlights
Another year. Another 10 outstanding student-athletes honored as Senior CLASS Award winners. We love it! From fall to spring, the 2017-18 academic year gave us some incredibly memorable winners. So, to recap this season, we’d like to recount three of our internal highlights from this Senior CLASS Award year. Take a look!
1. Okay, let’s be honest here. Football winner Shaquem Griffin had one of the most amazing stories in all of sports this year, and we were thrilled to be able to honor…
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Senior CLASS Award Year in Review
Every spring when the academic year comes to a close, we get a chance to look back on the “year that was” in the world of the Senior CLASS Award (SCA). It’s always inspiring to remember the student-athletes who were honored and recall what they’d done to deserve the honor.
This year was certainly one to remember for the SCA staff, as it featured several firsts in award history. We saw our first set of twins make it to the round of finalists when Minnesota volleyball stars Paige…
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Patience pays off for volleyball star Mancuso
As her sister Dani was busy helping Nebraska win the 2006 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship, Gina Mancuso was tearing it up on the court as a sophomore at nearby Papillion-LaVista High School. Two years later, Gina was named the Gatorade National Volleyball Player of the Year – the first high school athlete from the state to win the honor.
So, taking up where Dani left off and making an immediate impact on the Husker volleyball team – no problem, right?
Wrong.
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Alaina Bergsma relishes roles as volleyball player and pageant queen
The University of Oregon women’s volleyball team is in the middle of a season-long hot streak and driving the bus is senior Alaina Bergsma. The 6’3” outside hitter is leading her squad to one of its most successful seasons in recent years, and still finding time to be productive and charitable off the court.
Bergsma has been nominated as one of 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award. The honor recognizes Division I women’s volleyball athletes who not only put up big numbers at…
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Fall season kicks off with stellar list of candidates
We’ve barely had time to catch our collective breaths after a great season of Senior CLASS Award winners in 2011-12. We met the likes of Kirk Cousins - a terrific quarterback from Michigan State who wowed us all with his speech about the privilege and responsibility of being a student-athlete. We learned how important family and her home state of Hawaii are to Kanani Danielson when she joined us at the Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship. We saw perseverance personified when… Continue Reading
