(February 2, 2006) ?C On Sunday, January 29th, over 200 Fordham University student-athletes were honored for their academic achievement at the Breakfast of Champions in the McGinley Center Ballroom. For the third consecutive year, student-athletes with a cumulative GPA of 3.00 or higher were honored at the breakfast. Following opening remarks from Frank McLaughlin, Executive Director of Athletics at Fordham, former men??s basketball student-athlete Anthony Censullo, FC ??83, delivered a keynote address to all those in attendance. Censullo currently serves as an Executive Vice President at Garban ICAP, one of the largest bond trading outfits on Wall Street. He shared with the group a couple of his past experiences as a student-athlete, as well as mentioning how balancing academics and athletics, in addition to networking and efficiently managing his time as a student, played a vital role in his transition to the workplace.
Charlie Elwood, Director of Athletic Administration, then honored the top team GPA performers from each team. The top team performers by team are as follows:
Team - Name
Baseball - Eric Reese
Men??s Basketball - Nick Vita
Women??s Basketball - Stacey Price
Cheerleading - Elizabeth Palmeri
Football - Peter Jannen
Golf - Trevor Seufer
Rowing - Caroline Gibbons
Men??s Soccer - Doug Devereaux
Women??s Soccer - Leah Jerome
Softball - Laura Klaiber
Men??s Swimming - Ben Marzolf
Women??s Swimming - Katie Greiner
Men??s Squash - Andrew Ahlborn
Men??s Tennis - Peter Zipf
Women??s Tennis - Doina Sandor
Men??s Cross Country/Track - Jose Benitez
Women??s Cross Country/Track - Stephanie Luther
Volleyball - Bailey McKay
Water Polo - Kevin O??Neil
After the presentations, Bailey McKay, a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC), offered some closing remarks to the group in attendance. Shortly thereafter, men??s tennis/squash student-athlete Phil Bednarczyk presented a check in the amount of $1,000 to Claudio Phillips, Vice President of the Board for Habit for Humanity, on behalf of the student-athletes. In previous years, the student-athletes received a commemorative gift from the athletic department for their academic accomplishments. However this year, the group decided to forgo the gift and instead, donated the funds that would have been spent on the gifts to Habitat for Humanity.
Below are the men??s swimming student-athletes who were honored at the breakfast:
Chris Baracewicz
Benjamin Burge
Donato Callara
Brad Heyman
Michael Holtz
Eric Jochims
Josh Jochims
Robert Langford
Benjamin Marzolf
Robert Passaro
Shaun Porter
Jonathan Rowe
John Stoneburner
Winslow Tandler
Sean Terry
