Three Tulsa Student-Athletes Earn American Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Awards
8/17/2016 2:28:00 PM | Tulsa Hurricane, Rowing, Academics, Cross Country, Track and Field
Tulsa's Marissa Catalanotto, Tim Rackers and Marc Scott were all named American Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete Sport Excellence Award recipients, as voted on by The American Athletic Affairs Committee and announced today by Commissioner Mike Aresco. Nominees are chosen based on athletic performance (40-percent), academic performance (40-percent) and community service (20-percent), and must be at least a junior academically.
The Golden Hurricane had a league-best three recipients, while UConn, Houston, USF, SMU, and Tulane all had two selections.
Senior Marissa Catalanotto was a four-year rowing letterwinner, who competed in 26 career regattas. She helped the 2nd Varsity 8+ earn a silver medal at the 2015 American Athletic Conference Championship, and turned in a second-place Petite Final finish in the Lightweight 8+ at the 2015 IRA National Championship. Catalanotto went on to compete in the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea.
Off the water, Catalanotto was a Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Scholar Athlete as a sophomore and junior, and was an Intercollegiate Rowing Association All-Academic Honoree two times.
Senior Tim Rackers was named to the 2016 Academic All-America Division I Track & Field/Cross Country Third Team on Friday, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America.
The long distance runner was recently selected to the CoSIDA Academic All-District 7 Team, and graduated in May with a 3.95 grade-point average with dual degrees in mechanical engineering and Spanish. Rackers was a member of the Tulsa President's List with a 4.0 GPA in eight semesters, and was named on the Dean's List in two other semesters.
A St. Louis native, Rackers won the conference title in the 5,000-meter run at the American Athletic Conference Indoor Championships in February. He also finished third in the 3,000-meter run at the Indoor Championships. At the American Athletic Conference Outdoor Championships in May, he finished second in both the 5,000-meter and the 10,000-meter run. He placed 35th at the NCAA West Preliminary Championship in May in Lawrence, Kan.
Senior Marc Scott was a four-time All-American at Tulsa, earning the honor twice for cross-country, once for indoor and once for outdoor track.
Scott placed 10th at the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships and earned All-America honors for the second consecutive year in cross-country. He finished in first-place in four of his five cross-country races in the fall of 2015, winning the Chile Pepper Festival, the Wisconsin adidas Invitational, the American Athletic Conference Championship and the NCAA Midwest Regional, and guided Tulsa to a 20th place finish at the NCAA Championships.
Scott earned second-team All-America honors in the 2016 Indoor season in the 5,000 meter run. He also won the one mile in the American Indoor Meet and was named the meet's co-performer of the league after also finishing runner-up in the 5,000m and the 3,000m. Scott won the American Athletic Conference outdoor title in the 5,000m in 2016.
Players Mentioned
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