INDIANAPOLIS---Six former NCAA student-athletes have been named recipients of the 2007 Silver Anniversary Award.

The award recognizes former student-athletes who completed successful collegiate careers in various sports 25 years ago and went on to excel in their chosen professions.

The awards will be presented at the NCAA Honors Celebration on Sunday, January 7, during the annual NCAA Convention in Orlando, Florida.

This year’s Silver Anniversary Award honorees are Gail Koziara Boudreaux (Dartmouth College, basketball and track and field); Ambrose “Rowdy” Gaines (Auburn University, swimming); Steve Jordan (Brown University, football); Patricia Melton (Yale University, indoor and outdoor track and field); Ann Woods Smith (University of Florida, gymnastics); and William Stetson, M.D. (University of Southern California, volleyball).

Following are biographical sketches of the 2007 award winners:

Gail Koziara Boudreaux

Dartmouth College

Women’s Basketball and Track and Field

Executive Vice President for External Operations for Health Care Service Corporation

A four-time first team all-Ivy League selection and three-time Ivy League Player of the Year, Boudreaux’s success on the basketball court led to her being named an Ivy League Silver Anniversary women’s basketball team member. Boudreaux still holds 23 school records at Dartmouth including career scoring (1,933 points) and career rebounds (1,635). In addition to being a standout on the basketball court, she was also an all-American shot putter.

While on campus, Boudreaux was one of four student members of the Dartmouth College Athletic Council and an English tutor for the intensive Academic Support Program. A member of the Green Key Society service organization, she held leadership positions in the Aquinas House Catholic Student Center and was a volunteer at Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children.

After graduating from Dartmouth, she earned an MBA in finance and health care administration from Columbia Business School. Boudreaux joined Aetna in 1982, holding several managerial positions, eventually becoming senior vice president responsible for Aetna, Incorporated’s Group Insurance Business.

In 2002, Boudreaux joined Health Care Service Corporation as president of the Illinois Division. Today, she is the executive vice president for external operations for Health Care Services Corporation, overseeing the corporation’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans in Illinois, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas as well as the corporation’s subsidiaries, including Fort Dearborn Life, Colorado Bankers Life and Dental Network of America.

Boudreaux remains an active Dartmouth alumna and coaches basketball in her community. Currently, she serves on the board of directors for several boards including the Dental Network of America, Fort Dearborn Life Insurance Company, the Genzyme Corporation, the Metropolitan Planning Commission and the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Field Museum. She is also a member of the YWCA’s President’s Advisory Council and the Chicago Network, an organization for Chicago’s most influential women.

Ambrose “Rowdy” Gaines

Auburn University

Swimming

Chief Fundraising and Alumni Officer, USA Swimming

An eight-time NCAA champion and a six-time Southeastern Conference (SEC) winner at Auburn, Gaines claimed 1981 SEC Athlete of the Year honors. In 1982, Gaines, a 22-time all-American, was named the first recipient of the Conoco Phillips Performance Award winner presented by USA Swimming to the top performer in a specific event. The 17-time U.S. national champion also captured the Robert J.H. Kiphuth Award four times as the top scorer at the championships in 1981 and 1982.

A two-time Olympian, Gaines earned three gold medals in the 1984 Games. He set world records in the 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle events. Two years after being named Swimming World Magazine’s World Swimmer of the Year in 1980, Gaines was chosen for one of swimming’s highest honors, the McDonald’s Spirit Award. He was the World Masters champion in the 50-meter and 100-freestyle in 1992.

Gaines has served as a commentator for swimming events on CBS, TNT and ESPN. He has called four Olympics, including the 2004 Games in Athens for NBC, and also will have the call for the network during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. After stints as educational outreach director for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame and as vice president and general manager of Mainichi Sports USA, Gaines currently is the chief fund-raising and alumni officer for USA Swimming. He has been inducted into the Alabama and Florida Sports Halls of Fame and the International Hall of Fame. In addition, he is one of just 14 swimmers to earn entry into the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame.

An active spokesperson for the Children’s Miracle Network and Swim Across America, an organization dedicated to raising money for and awareness of cancer, Gaines also conducts youth clinics around the country.

Steve Jordan

Brown University

Football

Director of Construction Services, Ryan Southwest/Ryan Companies U.S. Inc.

A two-time First Team all-Ivy selection in 1980 and 1981, Jordan was a three-year starter and was named Associated Press honorable mention all-American in 1980. He set the single-season Brown record for receiving yards in one game (188 verses Penn in 1981); set the receiving record for yards in a season (693 in 1981); and finished his career as Brown’s third all-time career receiver with 1,330 yards.

Jordan graduated from Brown in 1982 with a degree in engineering. He was also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and the National Society of Black Engineers.

A member of the Minnesota Vikings from 1982 to 1994, Jordan was six-time all-Pro selection at tight-end (1987-92) and was recognized as a member of the Vikings 40th Anniversary Team. He served as representative of the Vikings players’ union in salary and contract negotiations. Jordan currently serves as senior project manager for Ryan Companies Inc., where he coordinates client construction activities among architects, engineers, subcontractors and superintendents on Ryan Companies projects.

Jordan established the Steve R. Jordan Endowed Scholarship for Minority Athletes at Brown in 2000. Also at Brown, he has served on the Brown Sports Foundation Board of Directors since 1996 and member of the engineering department’s 150th anniversary campaign committee. He served as Term Trustee Emeritus of the Corporation from 1993 to 1997 and a Corporation Fellow from 1998 to present. Other professional and civic contributions include member of the College Football Hall of Fame Advisory Board, Leukemia Golf Classic former honorary chairman, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation honorary board member, Special Olympics volunteer, National Missing Children’s Foundation, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Boys and Girls Clubs, Camp Confidence and Minnesota Attorney General’s Office Alliance for a Drug-Free Minnesota.

Patricia Melton
Yale University
Indoor and Outdoor Track and Field
Educational Entrepreneur

The 1982 Ivy Player of the Year, Melton received Yale’s Outstanding Senior Athlete honor, The Nellie Elliot Award. She was captain of the indoor and outdoor track teams in 1982. She was a three-time recipient of the Treasurer’s Track Award as the Outstanding Performer in the Harvard/Yale Dual Meet and recipient of the Outstanding Performer Award at the both the 1982 indoor and outdoor Heptagonal Championships. She was a seven-time Heptagonal champion throughout her undergraduate career, Eastern Champion in the 400-meter hurdles in 1982 and the silver medalist at the outdoor 1982 National Collegiate Track & Field Championships. She was named all-American in 1982 in outdoor Track & Field and was ranked ninth in the 400-meter hurdles by U.S. Track & Field News that same year. Melton still holds the Yale indoor track school record in the 400-meter dash and the outdoor track record in the 400-meter hurdles.

As a student-athlete at Yale with a major in Afro-American studies, Melton volunteered for the Special Olympics. She also served in the United States Marine Corps as a reservist where she was named the top Honor Graduate in her Women’s Recruit Training Command.

Melton is a national education leader, school developer and start-up expert who assists state and community stakeholders, school districts, colleges and youth-serving not-for-profit organizations in designing and developing new small high schools for under-served urban, first-generation and low-income students. She has been instrumental in the creation of nine new K-12 schools in three states (Washington, Ohio and Indiana). She has spent 20 years working to expand educational equity for all students, with a particular focus on high school completion and college access and success.

Melton is currently the lead school design consultant and early college high school expert for the University of Indianapolis’ Center of Excellence in Leadership of Learning (CELL).  She also consults with YouthBuild USA, a national nonprofit organization serving out-of-school and dropout youth based in Somerville, Massachusetts. Melton has served in a number of senior management positions working on projects to increase educational access for all students for organizations such as A Better Chance, Inc., the Seattle Urban League, College Planning Network, Massachusetts General Hospital, City on a Hill Charter School and Teacher Institute and KnowledgeWorks Foundation. She was also an assistant track coach at Yale from 1986-88 and served with the Seattle Goodwill Games Organizing Committee as an assistant vice president for sports from 1988-90.

Athletic achievements since graduating from Yale  include 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials finalist in the 800-meter run; 1988, Souders Award, New England Prep School Award for distinguished sports and career achievement; 1994, Ivy League Silver Anniversary Team, 25 years of Ivy League Women’s Athletics, 1999; Middlesex Athletic Hall of Fame, 2003. Professional achievements include a fellowship award by the Leadership for Educational Entrepreneurs (LEE) program for emerging national school leaders sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education charter school division and Arizona State University.

Professional and civic contributions include at-large delegate to Yale University Alumni Association, INSPIRE board member, Bain & Monitor Consulting Pro-Bono Group, Middlesex School Board of Trustees, officer/secretary, MESA board member – Math, Engineering and Science Achievement program, and the African-American Academy Planning Committee, Seattle Public Schools.

Ann Woods Smith

University of Florida

Gymnastics

Senior director of public affairs, Medco Health Solutions, Inc.

A seven-time all-American at Florida, Smith was the Honda Broderick Award winner as the top collegiate female athlete in gymnastics in 1982. That same year, she claimed a third-place finish in the vault in the NCAA championships event final and captured the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) all-around, uneven bars and floor exercise titles. An all-Southeastern Conference selection in 1981 and 1982, the first two years of league-sponsored gymnastics competition, she is third in school history with 20 all-around victories.

As a student at Florida, Smith developed and implemented a comprehensive public relations campaign for a municipal childcare center that resulted in a 35 percent boost in attendance and earned the National Community Service Project Award. She was a 1982 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship recipient.

Since 2000, Smith has been senior director of public affairs at Medco Health Solutions, Inc., where she is charged with creating proactive publicity campaigns that general local, regional and national media attention. Under Smith’s leadership, the group has earned nine communication awards for campaigns over the past four years. Before moving to Medco, she rose to the level of senior director for marketing communications at Nabsico, Inc. during a 10-year span with the organization. She also formerly served as women’s sports information director at Florida and worked as a sports researcher and gymnastics terminologist for ABC during the 1984 Summer Olympics.

The publicity and media coordinator for St. Elizabeth Interparochial School, Smith also assists in a variety of the school’s fund-raising activities. In addition to serving as an annual judge for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America’s national marketing campaigns, she is an assistant soccer and softball coach with the Wyckoff Recreation Program.

William Stetson, M.D.

University of Southern California

Men’s Volleyball

Orthopedic Surgeon

Associate Clinical Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine

A member of the Southern California men’s volleyball championship team (1980), Stetson was a four-year letter winner and later, a USA Men’s Junior National Volleyball Program Team Member. Named Southern California’s Most Outstanding Senior Student-Athlete and the Pacific 10 Conference Most Outstanding Scholar-Athlete, Stetson later received his medical degree from the University of Southern California School of Medicine.

Stetson continued his volleyball career after graduation, playing professionally on the beach and indoors and was a five-time winner of the U.S. Open National Volleyball Championships as a member of Team Nike while still in medical school.  He took a one year leave of absence from his medical studies to play professionally in Europe where his team won the West German Championship.  For two years, he served as an assistant coach at Southern California, when the team finished second at the NCAA championships both years.

Stetson specializes in sports medicine with an expertise in arthroscopic and reconstructive surgery of the shoulder, knee, elbow and ankle. In addition to his medical practice, Stetson has been an associate clinical professor of orthopedic surgery in the Southern California Keck School of Medicine for more than a decade. He is a member of numerous professional societies including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

Serving as team physician for several high school and college teams throughout his career, Stetson is currently a consulting physician for the USA Men’s Volleyball Team. Devoted to clinical research and academic development, he has presented research papers worldwide at orthopedic conferences and makes appearances on television and radio talk shows. Additionally, Stetson contributes articles for publications throughout the country.

In conjunction with visits to Cuba and Haiti, Stetson recently started a non-profit organization, Operation Arthroscopy, whose mission is to teach and provide arthroscopic surgical equipment to third world countries.

The Silver Award winners are selected by the NCAA Honors Committee, which comprises eight athletics administrators at member institutions and nationally distinguished citizens who are former student-athletes.

The committee members are: Thomas J. Brown, commissioner, Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference; Cedric W. Dempsey, president emeritus, NCAA; Timothy W. Gleason, commissioner, Ohio Athletic Conference; Calvin Hill, consultant, Dallas Cowboys; Jackie Joyner-Kersee, former University of California, Los Angeles, track and field student-athlete and Olympian; Gibbs Knotts, faculty-athletics representative, Western Carolina University; Julie Power Ruppert, associate commissioner and senior woman’s administrator, America East Conference; and Barbara G. Walker, Senior Associate Athletic Director, Wake Forest University.