Homecoming Weekend started long before the opening kickoff at Saturday's football game. Festivities for the weekend officially commenced on Friday night at the Athletic Department's annual Distinguished Achievement Awards Ceremony.
In front of a capacity audience in Cohen Auditorium that included all Tufts varsity teams as well as coaches, administrators and friends of Tufts athletics, six athletes and a campus sports journalist received 2005-2006 Athletic Department Awards.
In the evening's closing presentation, the Jumbo Club received the Distinguished Achievement Award for its nearly four decades of dedication and service to Tufts sports.
Director of Athletics Bill Gehling emceed the ceremony along with Assistant Director of Athletics Branwen Smith-King and University Provost Jamshed Bharucha.
"It's always great," Director of Sports Information Paul Sweeney said of the ceremony. "Tufts has one of the best athletic programs, not only in New England but in the nation, really, and so when you pick out six representatives of every year, you're going to have kids that are very well-accomplished and very deserving."
Senior Fred Jones won the Clarence "Pop" Houston Award for best male athlete in recognition of his tremendous year in track and field. Ariel Samuelson (LA '06) of the women's soccer team took home the Hester L. Sargent Award as the school's best female athlete.
The Rudolph J. Fobert Awards, which honor athletes who excel in more than one sport, went to senior Bryan McDavitt for his feats in football and baseball and to junior Catherine Beck for her efforts in cross country and track.
Becky Bram (LA '06) and Marc Katz (LA '06) were given the W. Murray Kenney Awards, recognizing their positive attitudes, persistence, and senior leadership on the women's tennis and swimming teams, respectively.
Sweeney also praised these scholar-athletes for excelling in sports while still attending a school with the academic rigor of Tufts.
"It makes sense to me that a kid that is motivated and dedicated and intelligent enough to get into Tufts would be very motivated and dedicated in their athletic pursuits as well," he said. "They're just the cream of the crop. Their success in athletics parallels their success in academics."
The 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award for which the ceremony is named was given this year to the Tufts Jumbo Club, which will close its operations this year after 37 years of service and support of Tufts athletics.
The Distinguished Achievement Award goes to a person, or in this case an organization, that has displayed success in the sports world while having what Bharucha described as a "Jumbo connection." Past winners include ex-Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, Olympic skater Nancy Kerrigan, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Gehling deferred to Bharucha when the time came to recognize the contributions of the Jumbo Club. Bharucha outlined the club's history, from its creation in 1969 at a critical moment in the continued existence of Tufts athletics, to the support it has given over the past four decades. The club has donated team uniforms, scoreboards (including the Jumbotron that hangs above the basketball court in Cousens Gym), and other necessary equipment.
"I can say that the Jumbo Club has meant more to the Athletics Department in 37 years than anything else," Bharucha said at the ceremony.
Jones took home the triple jump championship at the NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in May. His win came on the heels of a fourth-place finish in the long jump at the NCAA Indoor Track & Field Championships in February. He took All-American honors in both the indoor and outdoor seasons and dominated the Div. III New England Regional Indoor Championships, picking up his third straight triple jump and second straight long jump titles.
Samuelson was a soccer tri-captain last year, leading the squad to the New England title and the NCAA semifinals and earning a First-Team All-American nod. Leading the NESCAC in scoring, Samuelson won the conference's Player of the Year Award while scoring 14 goals for the Jumbos.
For McDavitt, the Fobert Award was his second straight, and recognized standout seasons in baseball and football. McDavitt pulled double-duty as a defensive back and punter on the football team and first baseman on the baseball team. Last fall, he posted the second-most tackles (56) and the most interceptions (two) on the Jumbos' and batted .420 with four homers, 38 RBIs, and a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage for the baseball team.
Beck was a major force behind the cross country squad's second-ever team berth at Nationals, taking first for the team every time she raced. After winning the 1,500 meters in the All-New England Championships, beating out a field of Div. I, II and III runners, she finished second in the event at the NCAA Outdoor Championships last May. Beck is also the reigning New England Div. III indoor mile champion.
Bram won a team-best 15 singles matches as captain last season while displaying a level of team leadership and sportsmanship that earned her NESCAC Senior Sportswoman of the Year honors. Katz, a swim team captain, was an important senior leader for the squad despite breaking his wrist, which prevented him from swimming for the Jumbos at the NESCAC Championships last winter.
In an interview before the ceremony, Jones praised all Tufts athletes, not just those receiving awards Friday night.
"I think that student-athletes at Tufts are a very special breed," Jones said. "I think they really define what a student-athlete is. You've got to be extremely dedicated, you've got to be extremely focused, and you've got to be extremely disciplined."
Athletes were not the only ones honored Friday, as the Timothy J. Horgan Award for excellence as a sportswriter went to junior Liz Hoffman, the executive sports editor of the Tufts Daily.
The recipients were decided by a small committee of staff members chaired by Sports Information Director Paul Sweeney. The committee solicited nominations from coaches and other athletics staff members and considered the nominees over the summer.
According to Sweeney, the number of qualified nominees under consideration every year makes the selection process difficult.
"It's almost a shame that we can only pick six, because there's always kids that are also deserving," he said. "And every year you're honoring kids that are very deserving. There's never an exception."
