Ball Earns MAC Male Scholar-Athlete of the Week Award
1/22/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Swimming and Diving
Jan. 22, 2003
Miami senior swimmer Kelly Ball (Granger, IN/Penn) earned the Mid-American Conference Male Scholar-Athlete of the Week award this week, the conference office announced Wednesday. The award comes one day after being named the MAC Swimmer of the Week.
Ball becomes the seventh Miami athlete to earn the conference honor during the 2002-03 season and only the second male. Sophomore basketball player Tim Schenke (Cincinnati, OH/Elder) was named MAC Male Scholar-Athlete of the Week on Dec. 10.
Ball earned two come-from-behind individual first-place finishes in the 200-yard butterfly and 200-yard freestyle over Wright State on Friday evening in Oxford, Ohio. The senior also swam the final leg of the 400-yard freestyle relay, to help Miami dramatically defeat Wright State on the last event of the evening. On Saturday, Ball touched the wall first in the 200-yard Individual Medley and the 500-yard freestyle, respectively, over swimming power Kenyon College.
Ball has also shown leadership in the classroom to go along with his leadership in the pool. Besides serving as president of the RedHawk Council, which represents Miami student-athletes from each team, Ball holds a 3.40 GPA with a Spanish major. Ball also participated in the CHAMPionship Reading Program last year as he went to area schools to help encourage reading.
Ball is no stranger to MAC awards, the butterfly and freestyle swimmer earned first-team all-MAC plaudits last season and second-team all-MAC accolades during 2000-01 along with academic all-MAC honors the past two seasons.
Along with his teammates, Ball will take the weekend off before hosting MAC rival Ohio University on Jan. 31 at the Corwin M. Nixon Aquatic Center in Oxford, Ohio.