Soccer team captain wins prestigious NCAA fellowship

Women's soccer captain Sarah Russell-Smith '08 (Southampton, Mass.) has been awarded a National Collegiate Athletic Association postgraduate scholarship. She is the first Skidmore soccer player to receive the prestigious award.

The NCAA awarded 58 scholarships (29 men, 29 women) to fall-sports participants from all three divisions who will receive one-time, nonrenewable grants of $7,500. The scholarships go to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition. Only 10 awards went to women's soccer players, with three going to NCAA Division III athletes.

Russell-Smith was a four-year starting defender for the Thoroughbreds, earning 2007 Liberty League honorable mention. She led a Skidmore defense that had shutouts in 12 of 19 games and held opponents to only 3.5 shots per game this season. The Thoroughbreds finished 11-6-2, losing in overtime in the Liberty League semifinals to eventual champion William Smith College.

"We are so proud of the tremendous accomplishment of Sarah Russell-Smith," said Athletics Director Gail Cummings-Danson. "She truly exemplifies the meaning of student-athlete and has been an outstanding role model both on and off the field."

A physics major with a 3.93 grade-point average, Russell-Smith was recently elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Her academic awards also include Thoroughbred Honor Society (Skidmore's academic honor society for athletes), Liberty League All-Academic, ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District, highest college honors, Periclean Honor Society, Honors Forum, and Sigma Pi Sigma.

Although she has not yet decided on which graduate school to attend, Russell-Smith plans to study civil engineering with a focus on environmental engineering, specifically energy and atmosphere.

The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship was created in 1964 to promote and encourage postgraduate education by rewarding the association's most accomplished student-athletes through their participation in NCAA championships and/or emerging sports.