Red Flash Athletics
SFU’s Palko, Roosevelt Garner ESPN The Magazine Academic Honors
LORETTO, Pa. (Nov. 9, 2006) – Saint Francis University seniors Luke Palko (Imperial, Pa. / West Allegheny) and Anne Roosevelt (Plymouth, Mich. / Mercy) have been awarded ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II honors, which were announced on Thursday by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
An Accounting major with a 3.75 grade point average, Palko was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II first team for the second straight year. As a first team all-district honoree, he advances to the national ballot and will have the opportunity to earn ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors. He became Saint Francis’ 28th Academic All-American in 2005, and is now a nominee to become the university’s seventh repeat honoree of CoSIDA’s Academic All-America program.
Roosevelt is a Psychology major at Saint Francis, where she has a 3.57 grade point average. An ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II second team honoree, Roosevelt was also named the Northeast Conference’s Women’s Volleyball Player-of-the-Week on Monday, her second such accolade of the year. She has led the Red Flash to a school record 18 wins this season, while breaking the single-season school records for kills (437), total attacks (1,177) and digs (425). She is also the school’s all-time leader in kills (1,346), service aces (214) and digs (1,436).
Palko was also recently selected to be among “the best and the brightest from the college gridiron,” as he was named as one of 17 collegiate football players from across all levels of NCAA and NAIA as a 2006 National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) National Scholar-Athlete.
Palko will be honored at the 49th annual NFF Awards Dinner on December 5 at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. He will receive an $18,000 post-graduate scholarship, and is a finalist to be the recipient of the 2006 Draddy Trophy, which recognizes an individual as the absolute best scholar-athlete in the nation. Established to honor former NFF Chairman Vincent DePaul Draddy, a Manhattan College quarterback who developed the Izod and Lacoste brands, the award comes with a stunning 24-inch, 25-pound bronze trophy and increases the winner’s scholarship to a total of $25,000.