Kyle Dake and Loren Shealy Named Sports Illustrated College Athletes of the Year

Sports Illustrated today announced that Cornell wrestler Kyle Dake and North Carolina field hockey player Loren Shealy are the 2012­-13 SI College Athletes of the Year. The award celebrates one male and one female collegiate student athlete who have achieved athletic distinction and have had an outsized impact in the classroom or in their communities. Both student athletes are profiled on SI.com and in the May 27, 2013, issue of SI, on newsstands now.

Dake, an academic All-American at Cornell, became the first wrestler to have won an NCAA title in four different weight classes after his championship as a senior this past March. In his profile on Dake, senior writer Luke Winn says that Dake’s unprecedented success puts him in the conversation of the greatest college wrestler of all time, along with such standouts as Dan Gable at Iowa and  Pat Smith at Oklahoma State. “What Kyle did is more remarkable than anybody who came before him,” says Cornell wrestling coach Rob Koll.

Dake, who grew up in Ithaca (where Cornell is located), kept a notebook throughout college where he recorded all of his dreams and goals, nearly all of which came true. “I feel like Kyle has a dream every night about wrestling,” says teammate Joe Stanzione, who shares a house with Dake and 32 other teammates. When Winn asks him about what happens in that dream, Stanzione says, “He wins. Period.” Winn writes that Dake will start a new notebook for the next chapter in his life, which will include competing for the next three world championships and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

Shealy, a sophomore forward for the Tar Heels from Charlotte, ranked second on the team in goals (16) and third in points (34) as UNC reached the NCAA final four the fourth straight year. “Loren is a leader, she’s unselfish, she’s down-to-earth and she gets along with everybody,” says UNC field hockey coach Karen Shelton in senior writer Kelli Anderson’s profile on Shealy.

Even better are her credentials in the classroom—Shealy has a 4.0 GPA as a business administration student, won the Elite 89 award, given annually to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative GPA participating at each of the NCAA championship sites, and is the first UNC athlete to earn a Robertson scholarship. The Robertson, which gives a full-ride award annually to 18 UNC and 18 Duke students, requires that scholars live for a semester on the campus of their school’s biggest rival. “She is successful in everything, and her organizational skills put the rest of us to shame, but she is also one of the nicest people, with one of the best senses of humor, I’ve ever known,” says teammate Charlotte Craddock.

The SI College Athlete of the Year finalists, chosen by SI editors, included six seniors, two sophomores and two juniors who competed during the 2012-2013 academic year. The celebrated student athletes represented 10 different sports.

The four men’s finalists proved extraordinary over the past year on the field, the court and the rink:

• Trey Burke, basketball, University of Michigan
• Khaled Holmes, football, USC
• Drew LeBlanc, ice hockey, St. Cloud State University
• Tyler Thornton, basketball, Duke University

The four women’s finalists included a four-sport star and three four-year standouts:

• Liz Brenner, volleyball, basketball, softball and track and field, University of Oregon
• Kimberlyn Duncan, track and field, LSU
• Brittney Griner, basketball, Baylor University
• Taylor Thornton, lacrosse, Northwestern University

Profiles on all of the finalists, including videos and features on the winners can be found at si.com/collegeathlete. Volkswagen is the SI College Athlete of the Year sponsor on SI.com.