CONTACT: Ira P. Thor

Sports Information Director, New Jersey City University

Phone: 201/200.3301

E-mail: ithor@njcu.edu

NEW JERSEY CITY ’S DIANA LAWSON NAMED NEW JERSEY ATHLETIC CONFERENCE FEMALE ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

THREE-TIME NATIONAL CHAMPION EARNS TOP OVERALL NJAC HONOR

MANTUA, NJ (06/04/2004)…New Jersey City University senior DIANA LAWSON (Union, NJ/Queen of Peace), a nine-time All-American sprinter and a three-time NCAA Division III National Champion in the indoor 55-meter dash has been named the New Jersey Athletic Conference Female Athlete of the Year for the 2003-2004 academic year, the league office announced today. The selection was made by a vote of the conference’s Board of Athletic Administrators and marks the first time in NJCU history that a male or female athlete at the institution has received the top overall annual award bestowed by the league.

Lawson , along with Rowan University junior pitcher Tom McCullen , the Male Athlete of the Year, will be honored at the Fifth Annual NJAC Awards Brunch which will be held at the Hyatt Regency in Princeton on Sunday, June 6 at 11am .

The award honors the top female athlete in the conference among the league’s nine affiliated women’s sports—basketball, cross-country, field hockey, indoor and outdoor track and field, soccer, softball, tennis, and volleyball.

Lawson may go down as the greatest indoor women’s track athlete in Division III history and is certainly the greatest women’s athlete in the history of NJCU. On March 13, she became a nine-time All-American in indoor and outdoor track and field by winning the NCAA Division III National Championship in the 55-meter dash for the third time in four years. She’s only the 11^th track athlete in Division III history to win any event three times in a career, only the second to do it in the 55-meter dash, and the first in 14 years.

Lawson owns the four fastest times in Division III history in the dash, including three at the NCAA meet, where she is the only woman to ever run the event in less than seven seconds. In the national trials on March 12, 2004, she broke her own national record of 6.98 seconds when she crossed the line in 6.93 seconds, a time that will likely stand for years. She won the national title the next day in 6.97 seconds, a remarkable 14/100^th of a second faster than the field, a time which is an eternity in a sprint event.

She also was a First-Team All-American as the anchor of the 4x400-meter relay team which finished sixth in the nation. NJCU finished 14^th overall in the nation this year, the best national finish of an NJAC-affiliated women’s sport in the history of the University.

Lawson was selected as the 2004 United States Track Coaches Atlantic Region Indoor Female Athlete of the Year. She was a three-time ECAC champion in the 55-meter dash, the 4x400 and 4x200 relays. She broke her own ECAC record in the dash set as a sophomore when she won the 2004 crown in 7.05 seconds, 14/100^th of a second better than the rest of the field. The 4x200 relay team which she anchored crushed the field in an ECAC record 1:42.62. The 4x400 relay team won the title in 3:55.14.

Lawson capped off her historic indoor track and field career in the NJAC by winning the Thomas M. Gerrity Most Outstanding Female Athlete award, equivalent to the league’s Most Valuable Player, for an unprecedented third time in four years, claiming all or part of four NJAC titles, and setting three conference records, all while leading the Gothic Knights’ women’s indoor track and field team to a second place finish at the 2004 NJAC Indoor Championships.

She previously took home the Most Outstanding Female honor as a freshman in 2001 and sophomore in 2002. Lawson won the NJAC championship and First-Team All-NJAC distinction in the 55-dash for a fourth consecutive year, breaking her own 2002 conference record when she easily claimed the title in 7.13 seconds.

In the 200-meter dash, an event not offered at the NCAA championships, Lawson won the conference championship for the third time in four years (2001, 2002, 2004), and broke her own 2002 league mark when she sprinted to the crown in 24.77 seconds. The second place time in the event was 25.39.

The NJCU 4x200-meter relay team led by Lawson , won the event championship in 1:41.04 seconds, and broke the NJAC record of 1:42.88. She led NJCU to the 4x400-meter title in 4:00.94, seven seconds better than the rest of the field.

Overall in 2004, Lawson ran 25 individual races, and placed first 19 times for a winning percentage of .760. In the other six times on the track, she posted five second-place and one fourth-place showing. In her best event, the 55-meter dash, she was first in 12 of 14 appearances during the season. She also anchored the NJCU relay teams nine times, winning six races for a combined 25 first-place performances individually or in the relays.

Lawson is on pace to receive her Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice in the fall of 2004, and has ambitions of eventually attending law school.

DIANA LAWSON, a nine-time All-American sprinter and a three-time NCAA Division III National Champion in the indoor 55-meter dash has been named the New Jersey Athletic Conference Female Athlete of the Year for the 2003-2004 academic year.