College Sports Information Directors of America

An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School™, the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.

To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence – classroom, character, community and competition. The complete list of candidates follows this release.

Men's/women's soccer and football are three of the nine sports in the Senior CLASS awards program. The others are: men’s and women’s basketball, men’s ice hockey, men’s lacrosse, baseball and softball.

Sixty NCAA® men’s and women’s soccer student-athletes who excel both on and off the field were tabbed as candidates for the 2009 Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award in the two soccer divisions. More than 170 student-athletes were nominated.

The 2009 candidate class of 60 includes 10 student-athletes who were named Scholar All-Americans by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in 2008. Four of the 60 have maintained a cumulative grade point average of 4.00. Twenty-one candidates represent teams ranked in the preseason top 25 men’s and women’s polls. And 13 of the 60 candidates are on the preseason watch list for the Hermann Trophy, awarded annually by the Missouri Athletic Club to the top male and female Division I soccer players in the country at the end of the season.

Lowe’s, an official Corporate Partner of the NCAA, will announce the Senior CLASS Award winners during the 2009 NCAA Men’s and Women’s College Cup championships in early December.

This is the third year for the men’s and women’s soccer division of the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. The 2008 recipients were Sam Cronin (Wake Forest) and Kerri Hanks (Notre Dame), and the 2007 honorees were Evan Barnes (United State Naval Academy) and Stephanie Lopez (University of Portland).

More on the 2009 Lowe's Senior CLASS Football Nominees
2009 Lowe's Senior CLASS FOOTBALL Candidates Release & List of Candidates (PDF)

Thirty NCAA® football student-athletes were tabbed as candidates for the 2009 award. The 2009 candidates include student-athletes from 13 teams ranked in the Associated Press preseason top 25 poll. There are five AP All-Americans, one American Football Coaches Association All-American, one member from the AFCA’s Allstate Good Works Team and one former Heisman Trophy winner. In addition, three candidates were named to last year’s CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American team.

The 30 candidates will be narrowed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot.

This marks the second year for the football division of the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award. In 2008, Ohio State University linebacker James Laurinaitis took home the inaugural football award.