May 27, 1998

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Notre Dame men’s basketball senior forward Pat Garrity has been named one of 10 winners of a NACDA Preseason Games Scholar-Athlete Award by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of America (NACDA).

The winners were chosen from 353 nominees and each receive a $5,000 grant toward graduate studies. The scholarships are funded by proceeds from NACDA’s two preseason football games — the Kickoff and Pigskin classics.

Earlier this month, Garrity was named a winner of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, which consists of a $5,000 award for the postgraduate study of his choice.

Other NACDA winners include: Margaret Boutilier (women’s lacrosse) from Virginia; David Ciesla (baseball) of Arkansas Tech; Jennifer Erdos (swimming) of Allegheny; Robert Gray (football) of MIT; Chad Kessler (football) of Louisiana State; Dominic Lanza (football) of Dartmouth; Jeremy Lindley (football) of Southern Mississippi; Peyton Manning (football) of Tennessee and Janelle Tranquillo (field hockey) of Ball State.

Garrity held a 3.679 grade point average with a major in science in pre-professional studies and is a two-time GTE Academic All-America first team selection. Garrity was also named the 1998 GTE Academic All-American in the sport of men’s basketball.

He was named the winner of the Notre Dame Club of St. Joseph Valley Rockne Student-Athlete Award for men’s basketball in March. Garrity is also one of five winners of this year’s Byron V. Kanaley Award, given to the Notre Dame student-athletes each year who have been most exemplary as student-athletes.

Garrity earned second-team honors All-America honors this season from the Associated Press and The Sporting News and was a third-team selection by the United States Basketball Writers Association and Basketball Weekly.

Garrity led the Irish in scoring (23.2) and rebounding (8.3) in ’97-’98, leading all BIG EAST Conference scorers and earning first-team all-BIG EAST honors by vote of the coaches. Despite playing only three seasons in the league, Garrity finished as the 15th-best scorer in the history of the BIG EAST (regular-season games only).

One of 10 finalists for the Naismith Award and one of 15 finalists for the Wooden Award, Garrity finished as the third-highest career scorer in Notre Dame basketball history with 2,085 points. He started all 111 games in his career, scored 20 or more points in 48 career games, scored in double figures in his last 46 games and in 85 of his last 88.