BATON ROUGE — The LSU track and field program takes great pride in its performance in the classroom, and senior Rabun Fox, senior Anna Lyons and junior Samantha Henry were honored Thursday with a selection to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI Team.
Fox, who is LSU’s male nominee for the Southeastern Conference McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year Award, received a first-team selection on the strength of his 3.73 cumulative grade-point average in kinesiology as he plans to go into the medical field.
The senior from Houma, La., will compete in the hammer throw at the NCAA Championships for the second-straight season after earning a fifth-place finish at the NCAA Mideast Regional.
Both Lyons and Henry have been honored as second-team selections to this year’s women’s track and field/cross country academic all-district team for their outstanding academic performance.
Lyons, a senior from Ruston, La., has been named a second-team member of the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District VI Team for the second time in her career as she sports a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade-point average while studying human movement. She has also been selected to the SEC Academic Honor Roll three times in her LSU career.
Lyons will compete in the javelin at the NCAA Championships for the first time after finishing in fifth place in the event at the NCAA Mideast Regional last weekend. Her seasonal-best throw of 168 feet, 11 inches ranks No. 15 among all javelin throwers in the NCAA this season.
Henry has proven to be an All-American both on and off the track during her collegiate career as she has earned second-team academic all-district honors for the first time.
Henry, a junior from Kingston, Jamaica who boasts an impressive 3.42 GPA in accounting, enters the NCAA Championships next week ranked No. 3 in the NCAA in the 200 meters with a seasonal best of 22.80 seconds and No. 8 in the NCAA in the 100 meters with a top time of 11.19. She is a seven-time All-American and four-time SEC champion during her Lady Tiger career.
Henry has proven to be one of the nation’s premier sprinters this season after earning two NCAA Indoor All-America honors in the 60 meters and 200 meters earlier this season. She has also taken home three SEC titles in the 60 and 200 meters indoors, as well as the 200 meters outdoors.
Each of these three athletes will compete next week at the 2009 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships to be held June 10-13 at John McDonnell Field in Fayetteville, Ark.