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Two Ivies Named Finalists for Wooden Citizenship Cup
Friday, January 15, 2010
Courtesy: Dartmouth and Harvard Athletic Communications
ATLANTA — Dartmouth women’s soccer senior Becky Poskin (Leawood, Kan.) and Harvard softball senior Melissa Schellberg (Las Vegas, Nev.) have been named two of five national finalists for the prestigious Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, presented to the most outstanding role model among athletes.
The Wooden Cup, being presented by Athletes for a Better World for the sixth year, is given to one collegiate and one professional athlete who have made the greatest positive influence in the lives of other. The collegiate winner will be announced from the group of five finalists at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club on January 19. Hall of fame soccer legend Mia Hamm, winner of two women’s world cups and two Olympic gold medals, is the professional recipient.
With Peyton Manning, John Smoltz, John Lynch, Andrea Yaeger and Cal Ripken, Jr. as previous recipients, the Wooden Cup is becoming one of the most prestigious awards in all of sports. Recipients are considered role models and athletes of excellence both on and off the field.
Poskin and Schellberg are joined by the following as finalists for the award:
Zak Boggs, South Florida soccer
Colt McCoy, Texas football
Brianna O’Donnell, UNC field hockey
The five finalists were narrowed from a field of 25 semifinalists, and a host of honorable mention candidates. The full list and more details on the award are available here.
Schellberg, a three-time All-Ivy League honoree, is the Crimson’s captain and starting third baseman. Off the field, she is active in the Harvard, Cambridge and Boston communities. She serves as community service coordinator for Harvard Athletics and co-chair of Harvard’s Student-Athlete Advisory Council. Through those roles, she has organized a wide variety of service activities for her fellow student-athletes. She also coordinated the softball team’s Harvard Strikes Out Cancer event and served as the community affairs intern with the Houston Astros. Schellberg has also been a peer advising fellow at Harvard.
An honorable mention All-Ivy selection this past fall, Poskin had an impressive five-year career at Dartmouth both on and off the field. She simply did it all while in Hanover, from the soccer court to community service to excelling in the classroom. She recently completed a fifth fall with the soccer team, utilizing a medical redshirt granted after an ACL injury cost her most of the 2007 season. Poskin graduated in December with a degree in sociology with an education concentration.
On the soccer field, Poskin helped Dartmouth to an NCAA Tournament bid as a freshman in 2005 and led the team to a national ranking as high as 13th her sophomore year, when she started all 16 games played. Poskin returned from her 2007 injury to serve as co-captain of the Big Green in both 2008 and 2009, playing in all 33 contests with 31 starts and contributing 16 points including six goals. She finished her collegiate career with 66 appearances and 50 starts, scoring 22 points. With Poskin in the lineup, Dartmouth won 42 games and 17 Ivy League contests.
Head coach Angie Hind offered the following reflection on Poskin as a soccer player: “In my 15 years of coaching at club, national, select and Division 1 college levels I have never worked with a more hard working and dedicated athlete. Becky consistently puts forth her best effort be it on the practice field, game field, or even when suffering a long-term injury, in her rehabilitation work — she has always shown the desire and genuine hunger to work hard and demands the same from those around her.”
Poskin perhaps shines brightest when it comes to her community service efforts. She has consistently displayed leadership, creativity and initiative in many volunteer efforts. In the spring of 2008 Poskin and teammate Myra Sack (Wynnewood, Pa.) founded Athletes United, a free sports league for local youth. The league brought together children who may not have economic means to participate in traditional leagues with Dartmouth student-athletes, who served as coaches.
During the winter of 2009, Poskin and two Dartmouth teammates traveled to Grananda, Nicaragua to volunteer for three months for Soccer Without Borders. Poskin was one of the first full-time volunteers for the program in Nicaragua, which uses soccer as a tool for positive change in the lives of marginalized youth. Experiences included a soccer league and life-skills training and mentoring for girls aged 10-16.
Dartmouth assistant coach Mary McVeigh, a founder of the Soccer Without Borders program in Nicaragua, watched Poskin’s efforts firsthand, noting: “Becky’s time in Granada, Nicaragua propelled this project forward with a momentum that has yet to subside. The girls she recruited and coached still remain in the program today, and the space she renovated now hosts four nightly events per week, including the Wednesday night sessions. To have strong, confident female athletes to look up to is a rare occurrence in Nicaragua; to couple those traits with kindness, humility, and an outright energy for life is invaluable.”
For her efforts, Poskin has received Dartmouth’s Dean of the College Service Award, Dartmouth Athletics Class of 1950 Award for community service and a grant for International Understanding from Dartmouth’s Dickey Center. Other community service efforts Poskin has participated in include: Dartmouth free soccer clinics, serving as a group leader for six-week youth programs, Project Preservation in Lvov, Ukraine, restoring a Jewish cemetery that had been destroyed by the Nazis; Hands on Gulf Coast, rebuilding houses destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in Biloxi, Miss.
Founded by Athletes for a Better World (ABW), a non-profit organization committed to changing the culture of American sports, the Wooden Cup is unique in that it is open to athletes in all collegiate and professional sports. Nominations come from every conference in the NCAA.
The Wooden Cup is named in honor of John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in collegiate history. Wooden’s legacy as a person of integrity, high moral character, compassion, and civic-mindedness continues to make him one of the most admired coaches in the history of sport.
Recipients of the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup are chosen by a committee chaired by Vincent Dooley, former University of Georgia athletic director, and other distinguished individuals involved in athletics across the country.
