Six years ago, Black Issues In Higher Education established the Sports Scholars Award to honor undergraduate students of color who exemplify the standards set by tennis great Arthur Ashe Jr.

A scholar and athlete, Ashe dedicated his life to expanding opportunities for young people. Each year, we invite every postsecondary institution in the country to participate in this awards program by nominating their outstanding sports scholars. Any student who is named an Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar must exhibit academic excellence and community activism as well as athletic prowess.

On the following pages are listed many fine student athletes who meet very rigorous standards. To be included, they needed to compete, at any level above club play, in an intercollegiate sport; maintain a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.2; and be active, on their campuses or in their communities.

Two of these scholar athletes stood out beyond the others -- LeTisha Shaw and Patrick Stephen. They are the 1998 Arthur Ashe Jr. Athletes of the Year.

Black Issues In Higher Education salutes Patrick and LeTisha -- and all the scholar athletes on the following pages.

1998 ARTHUR ASHE JR. SPORTS SCHOLARS AWARDS

IMPRESSIVE -- DILIGENCE

LeTisHA Shaw Junior Stevens Institute of Technology Cumulative GPA: 3.72 Major: mechanical Engineering Sports: Division III Basketball (Captain): Soccer (Captain): Track and Field (Acting Captain)

When people who know LeTisha Shaw speak of her, it is with fondness and admiration. Admiration because they know she is maintaining a 3.7 grade point average while carrying twenty credits in a very rigorous and demanding course of study -- mechanical engineering -- while competing in three sports -- basketball, soccer, and track and field -- and actively participating in volunteer work. Fondness because she is what her soccer coach calls, "a regular person."

"She is an amazing young person. She's one of those leaders by example," says Sarah Raslowsky, head soccer coach of Stevens Institute of Technology.

Stevens is not a sports powerhouse. An NCAA Division III school in Hoboken, N.J., it offers no athletic scholarships. It is, rather, a rigorous engineering school that graduated the likes of such people as the founder of Texas Instruments and sculptor Alexander Calder.

Ken Nilsen, dean of student life at Stevens, reports that students are required to complete 156 credits in order to graduate -- more than any other engineering school in the country.

To Nilsen, one of the most impressive things Shaw has done -- besides being named to the dean's list five times -- is to win the Exxon scholarship -- a full tuition award that includes a stipend plus summer jobs working with Exxon research labs. It is only offered to two students a year. "She is a very impressive person," says Nilsen.

Shaw, whose father has a mechanical engineering degree from City College of New York, became interested in science during a physics class in a central New Jersey high school. But when she participated in a three-week summer program at Rutgers University known as The Engineering Experience for Minorities (TEEM), she became serious about pursuing science as a career.

"We took physics, chemistry, and engineering," she recalls."The whole purpose was to get us prepared for a design project. Ours was a home gonorrhea test kit."

Of the experience, Shaw says, "My regular high school prepared me academically, but TEEM prepared me for the lab science, and design and presentation."

That plus her academic record made her an attractive recruit for Stevens.

"My guidance counselor liked Stevens and told me to apply," says Shaw. "It was the first school that accepted me."

Although there is no obligation on the part of either Exxon or Shaw to continue their relationship past graduation, Nilsen says one of Exxon's primary reasons for offering the scholarships is to groom potential managers and executives for their corporation.

Shaw's current design project is a photocatalytic oxidation unit which uses ultraviolet (UV) light from the sun to react with water and titanium dioxide to cleanse waste water.

"The trick," she says, "is to track the sun."

In addition to her academic work, Shaw is captain of the basketball team and of the soccer team -- elected to both positions by her teammates -- and acting captain of the track and field team. She was named outstanding defensive player in both soccer and basketball, and, her soccer coach says, "she isn't always looking to score -- she will dish [the ball] off to another player."

Her track and field coach, Adberto Alonso, is himself an engineer and a graduate of Stevens who currently works on navigational guidance systems for Kearfott Corporation, a former division of Singer.

"If I ask her to do something for me, she'll do it," says Alonso, noting that she throws the javelin, runs sprints, and -- in a pinch last month -- ran a distance medley relay. Because Shaw is a sprinter, she ran the shortest leg of the relay -- 400 m -- to post a team time of 15:26, a respectable time for a brand-new varsity program, and a school record.

Fellow teammate, Kara Somerville, says of Shaw, "She can lead without raising her voice. She makes me feel bad if I miss a practice more than the coach does."

In addition, Shaw serves as president of the Black Students Union, as a volunteer tutor, and as a peer health counselor. She is also active in the National Society of Women Engineers.

"She's gotten pretty good at time management," says Alonso.

Shaw says, "I'm trying to slow down a bit. I have to be moving all the time."

Patrick Stephen Junior Northern Illinois University Cumulative GPA: 3.83 Major: Biologival Sciences Sport: Division I-A Football

For some, athletic prowess and academic excellence come naturally, although not usually together. But that's not true for Patrick Stephen, at least according to Joe Novak, his head football coach at Northern Illinois University.

If this college junior with a 3.83 grade point average and a number of athletic awards has one thing to be even more proud of than his accomplishments, it's the hard work he puts in to achieve them.

"Everything doesn't come naturally to him," says Novak, who has been Stephen's coach for the past two years. "Patrick does well because he works that much harder than everyone else."

On Northern Illinois's team, he's had the best individual games against the best opponents: nine tackles in the Fiesta Bowl against Kansas State; eight against North Carolina State; ten more against then number 28-rated Toledo; and a career high 18 against then number 30-ranked Ohio.

He's no slouch when it comes to academics either.

A biological sciences major, he joined the university honors program when he decided that he needed to challenge himself a little more. He's been on the dean's list four times since he's been at Northern Illinois.

His position coach, Scott Shafer, says that Stephen is his own toughest critic.

"He's the kind of student who is not satisfied with a B-plus," says Shafer. "He knows when he does something wrong before you do."

His diligence is highly regarded by coaches and peers alike. His roommate and fellow teammate, Orlando Bowen, says that Stephen is the kind of guy you can't help but respect.

"I admire him because I know it's not easy to be a student athlete, take care of your business, and sustain that over a long period of time," says Bowen, who has known Stephen since high school. "That's something you have to admire."

Those who know him say that he's a master of time management. Spare minutes don't come often since college football requires a twelve-month commitment. But when he finds some, his head is in his books. Coaches say that on team trips, they often find him studying himself to sleep.

Stephen admits that he doesn't have much time to spare. He says that he gets good grades because he doesn't spend as much of his time being idle as his classmates.

"There are little time slots during the day when people just waste time," he says. "I carry my note cards with me and try to get some studying done in between classes so that I don't have as much work to do when I get home."

He says that he often stays up until three o'clock in the morning doing school work because practice doesn't end until 10:30 p.m. Then he wakes up early so that he can lift weights before he goes to classes. And what of a social life?

"Social life during the season?," he laughs. "Nonexistent."

During winter conditioning, his schedule frees up a little. But since he wants to become a doctor, the studying never ends.

The Brampton, Ontario, native admits that he has thought about a career in the NFL, but he knows that everybody can't go on to play professional football. He says that he will be taking the MCAT in August and then looking into where he wants to go to medical school.

But he acknowledges, "I'm keeping both doors open."