Beene Earns More Academic Honors

NORMAN – Senior Marissa Beene added two more honors to her list of academic accomplishments as she was named a CoSIDA Academic All-America second-team member and the 2016 Big 12 Rowing Scholar Athlete of the Year, the organizations announced Thursday.

Beene is one of 15 women on the CoSIDA All-America DI Second Team. She joins eight second-team members who boast a 4.0 cumulative GPA and is one of 26 student-athletes across all first, second and third team with a perfect GPA.

The Tempe, Ariz., native is the first Sooner rower to be achieve Big 12 Scholar Athlete of the Year, which is named in each of the conference's sponsored sports after being selected by the head coaches of each team. Scholar-Athletes of the Year must be a junior or senior, have a cumulative GPA of 3.20 or higher, participate in at least 60 percent of the team's scheduled events and have a minimum of one year in residence at the institution.

“As a 4.0 student in her engineering curriculum, it is amazing how she has been able to balance her academic pursuits with her very heavy time commitment to rowing,” Associate Athletics Director for Academic Services Mike Meade said. “She was also named the valedictorian, if you will, of the student-athlete graduating class this year. Due to the fact that rowing was competing in Big 12s that weekend she was unable to attend the graduation banquet, yet when I made the announcement to the team, they all cheered for her and were very proud that she represented rowing. I'm very proud of what she has done, and it's a great representation of what it means to be a true student-athlete."

Beene, a 4.0 computer science major, earned CoSIDA Academic All-District status this season and was named a recipient of the Dr. Prentice Gautt Postgraduate Scholarship earlier this week. She is a three-time CRCA Scholar Athlete and Academic All-Big 12 First Team selection, and has already begun an accelerated master's program in which she has clocked 18 credit hours toward a master's degree in robotics and machine learning at OU.

“I am so proud of Marissa and all that she has accomplished,” OU head coach Leeanne Crain said. “Her career has been defined by consistent excellence both in the classroom and on the water. It would be hard to find a student-athlete who better represents our program and the core values we embrace.”

Players Mentioned

Marissa Beene

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University of Oklahoma Athletics