Browne Receives NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Award
3/26/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
March 26, 2004
Indianapolis, Indiana - TCU placekicker Nick Browne is one of 58 student-athletes who has been awarded a $7,500 scholarship from the NCAA for postgraduate study at the university or professional school of his choice. The 29 male and 29 female student-athletes selected participated in fall sports, including women's badminton (emerging sport), men's and women's cross country, women's field hockey, football, men's and women's soccer, women's volleyball, and men's water polo.
In addition to the fall sport honorees, the NCAA also awards 116 postgraduate scholarships to student-athletes participating in winter and spring sports in which the NCAA conducts championships or participates in as an emerging sport, for a total of 174 postgraduate scholarships annually.
Browne was named first team All-America by the Football Writers Association of America and the Walter Camp Foundation, was named second team All-America by The Sporting News, the Football Foundation and the Associated Press, and was a third team pick by collegefootballnews.com in 2003. He was a first team All-Conference USA selection for the second straight year and was named the 2003 Conference USA Special Teams Player of the Year. The Garland, Texas product was also a first team CoSIDA Academic All-American for the second straight year. He ranked second in the NCAA in field goals made (28), second in field goals made per game (2.15) and was 10th in the nation in scoring, averaging a conference-leading 9.4 points per game. Browne holds the school record for career field goals made, having connected on 65-of-83 career field goal attempts and holds the TCU career record for points scored by a kicker with 299 and is behind only LaDainian Tomlinson (324) in career points at TCU regardless of position. He set a single game school record with 19 kicking points and tied his own school record with five field goals in the 2003 win over Cincinnati. Browne was named the C-USA Special Teams Player of the Week a record five times in 2003 and nine times in his career. He was selected as Playboy magazine's 2003 Anson Mount Scholar/Athlete of the Year. He did all of this while carrying a 3.97 GPA in the classroom while completing a degree in finance with an emphasis in real estate.
To qualify for an NCAA postgraduate scholarship, a student-athlete must have an overall grade-point average of 3.200 (on a 4.000 scale) or its equivalent and must have performed with distinction as a member of the varsity team in the sport in which the student-athlete was nominated. The student-athlete must have behaved, both on and off the field, in a manner that has brought credit to the student-athlete, the institution and intercollegiate athletics. The student-athlete also must intend to continue academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree as a full-time or part-time graduate student.
Nomination forms are sent to faculty athletics representatives for fall sports in September. Notifications for winter sports are sent in November and notifications for spring sports are sent in January. Selections are made three times each academic year. The application must be submitted during the appropriate seasonal category for the sport to the appropriate regional selection committee chair. Candidates are screened by seven regional selection committees, and the award recipients are selected by the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Committee.
For more information about the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Program, go to http://www.ncaa.org/, then click on Education Programs, Grants & Research.
