Shannon Boxx and Mike Brown Win BIG EAST Target Scholar-Athlete Awards
Irish athletes honored.

February 13, 1999

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Notre Dame senior women’s soccer player Shannon Boxx and senior track and field pole vaulter Mike Brown have been named 1998-99 BIG EAST/Target Scholar-Athlete Award winners. They each will receive $2,000 toward graduate studies. Providence’s Gladys Ganiel and Angelo Ciminiello won the overall BIG EAST/Target Scholar-Athlete of Year awards from among award winners from all 13 BIG EAST schools. Recipients of the award are determined by the league’s Academic Awards Committee.

Boxx, a four-year monogram winner on the Notre Dame women’s soccer team, was part of the first Notre Dame team to win four consecutive BIG EAST championships. The three-time all-BIG EAST selection finished her career at Notre Dame with 39 goals and 57 assists for 135 points, eighth most in Irish history. Boxx played in every game of her career, starting 96 of 101 games and helped her team to an 89-8-4 record in those games. She earned Soccer America freshman All-America honors as a starter on Notre Dame’s 1995 NCAA national championship team. The Torrance, Calif., native, has compiled a 3.11 cumulative grade-point average and will graduate in May from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in psychology. Boxx, who has volunteered for South Bend’s Headstart program and other Notre Dame life skills projects, plans to study psychology in graduate school.

Brown is a three-time BIG EAST pole vault champion and holds the Notre Dame records in both indoor (17-6) and outdoor (17-3) competition. As the first Irish pole vaulter to ever clear the 17-foot barrier, Brown provisionally has qualified for the NCAA Championships four times, including this year when he cleared 17-2 3/4 at last weekend’s Meyo Invitational. The Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., native, also has excelled in the classroom with a 3.456 grade-point average in pre-professional studies and will attend dental school after graduating from Notre Dame. The six-time All-BIG EAST selection is active in a number of community programs sponsored by the University’s life skills department and is one of 28 student-athletes who participate in Notre Dame’s Academic Honors Program.