Sports Shorts
DeRon Brown Collects Preseason All-America Honors
Following a historic season last fall, DeRon M. Brown ‘10 was selected to the d3football.com 2009 Preseason All-America First Team. The senior running back was the lone representative from the 16-team New England Football Conference (NEFC) to earn this honor and was MIT’s 10th overall pick and first since 1998.
Brown was tabbed as MIT’s first football All-American in 11 years by being voted to the d3football.com Second Team after finishing the 2008 campaign as the nation’s second-leading rusher. He shattered the single-season Institute record for rushing yards in a season with 1,816 yards in addition to a school-record 22 touchdowns. Brown averaged 6.6 yards per carry en route to establishing a new career rushing record at MIT with 2,778 yards.
During the season, Brown was a recipient of the Boston Globe Gold Helmet Award while he also earned NEFC and Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC) Player of the Week accolades. He authored the second and third best single-game rushing performances in team history, including a career-high 251 yards on 27 carries against Mass Maritime. Brown topped 200 yards versus three teams while his season low was 127 yards in a loss at UMass Dartmouth. He scored at least two touchdowns in each of the first eight games of the season and tied a school record with four TD’s in back-to-back weeks against Western New England and at Salve Regina.
Brown earned a bevy of postseason awards including New England Football Writers All-New England and NEFC Boyd Division Offensive Player of the Year.
—Mindy Brauer, DAPER Staff
MIT Volleyball Receives AVCA Team Academic Awards
MIT, along with Harvard University and Stanford University, was one of the only institutions to have both its men’s and women’s volleyball teams qualify for the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Team Academic Award. In addition, MIT was the only Division III program to double-up on AVCA accolades. Initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, this award honors collegiate and high school teams that displayed excellence in the classroom by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 mark on a 5.0 scale.
The college ranks produced 194 programs that met the requirements, including a record-setting 77 among Division III women’s teams. Joining MIT on the list from New England were conference foe WPI along with Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Colby College, Connecticut College, Emerson College, Middlebury College, Roger Williams University, Trinity College, UMass Boston, Wesleyan University, and Williams College. On the men’s side, which included all three divisions, Vassar College rounded out the field of four institutions.
—Mindy Brauer, DAPER Staff