Ray Fitzpatrick, Andy Jurkowski Earn GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America Honors
Fitzpatrick becomes first swimmer, Jurkowski third hockey player so honored.

April 18, 2000

NOTRE DAME, Ind. – Notre Dame senior swimmer Ray Fitzpatrick (Doylestown, Pa.) and senior hockey player Andy Jurkowski (Madison, Wis.)have been selected to the GTE Men’s Fall/Winter At-Large Academic All-America third team. Fitzpatrick and Jurkowski join women’s basketball player Ruth Riley (first team) as the three Notre Dame student-athletes to have earned Academic All-America honors thus far for the 1999-2000 season.

Fitzpatrick, who owns a 3.685 grade-point average in the College of Science with a major in math, becomes the first Notre Dame swimmer to earn Academic All-America honors. A team co-captain, Fitzpatrick won the 200-yard freestyle at the 2000 BIG EAST Conference meet, while leading the Irish to their second consecutive runner-up finish. A nine-time all-BIG EAST selection, Fitzpatrick is a seven-time Dean’s List honoree and owns seven University records.

A seven-time Dean’s List student, Jurkowski has a 3.86 cumulative grade-point average as a finance major in the College of Business. He helped the Irish reach the 2000 Central Collegiate Hockey Association semifinals for the first time since 1982. A former walk-on who began his career in 1996-97 as a forward/defenseman, he appeared in 108 career games including a team-best 86 straight, with seven goals and 12 assists. In 1999-2000, Jurkowski was the team’s ninth-leading scorer with five goals and eight assists.

With Jurkowski’s selection, Notre Dame becomes the nation’s only Division I hockey program to produce an Academic All-American in each of the past four years. Center Steve Noble was a second-team selection in 1996-97 and a first-teamer in ’97-’98, while goaltender Forrest Karr earned second-team honors for ’98-’99.