April 23, 2008

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FAIRFAX, Va. - Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine has announced the male and female finalists for the 2008 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars of the Year Awards.

The male finalists are Marcus Dixon, a senior football player from Hampton University; Cliff Hammonds, a senior basketball player from Clemson University; and Brian Robiskie, a football player from The Ohio State University.

The female finalists are Sarah-Jo Lawrence, a senior basketball player from The George Washington University; Momei Qu, a senior tennis player from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Jessica Young, a senior soccer player from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), which marks the second straight year a finalist has hailed from UMBC.

Hammonds just completed his fourth year as a starter on the Clemson basketball team. Earlier this year he was named third-team All-ACC on the court and first-team All-ACC academically. He was the first recipient of the league's Skip Prosser Award, which is presented to the top student-athlete in men's basketball. Hammonds will graduate in May with a double major in architecture and psychology. He will be the first Clemson men's basketball player on record to receive a degree in architecture.

The winners of the Arthur Ashe Award will be announced in the May 29, 2008, edition of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education as well as in Play magazine found in the Sunday, June 1, edition of The New York Times.