Campus News
Arcadia Graduate Captures Philly-SIDA Player of the Year Title
(Continued from Bulletin home page)
Fitzgerald was one of three Knights to receive Arcadia's Senior Scholar-Athlete Award. He was the 2008 recipient of the Ruth C. Grant Distinguished Achievement Award in the Fine Arts. Fitzgerald earned Dean's Distinguished List honors for all eight semesters of his undergraduate career and had a 3.84 cumulative grade point average as a fine arts major with a minor in photography.
"I had a great four years as a student-athlete at Arcadia," Fitzgerald reveals. "I watched myself develop as both a student and athlete with the help of our great faculty and athletics staff. I tried to take advantage of every opportunity presented to me, from study abroad [he traveled with the London Preview program, studied at the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland and worked as a visual artist in Italy], to organizing exhibitions on campus and obviously competing for my school. At Arcadia my coach, Lak Sphabmixay, and our athletics staff always show concern for academic achievement, which is a tribute to them and to our joining the highly competitive Middle Atlantic Conference."
Fitzgerald closed out his collegiate career on top of the MAC's Freedom Conference and academically among his Middle Atlantic opponents, but he also led the Knights squad for four years, having collected numerous accolades along the way, including: Pennsylvania Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year, PAC MVP, All-PAC First Team, PAC #1 Doubles Champion, and All-PAC Academic Team all in 2005; PAC #1 Singles Runner Up, PAC #1 Doubles Quarterfinalist, All-PAC First Team, All-PAC Academic Team all in 2006; PAC Player of the Year, PAC Player of the Week, PAC Weekly Honor Roll, PAC #1 Singles Champion, PAC #1 Doubles Runner-Up, All-PAC First Team, and All-PAC Academic Team all in 2007.
The tennis ace plans to continue playing and coaching the sport and currently serves as an assistant tennis professional at the DuPont Country Club in Wilmington, Del. He continues involvement in his other passion, photography, working for Photography in Hockessin, Del.
Joining Fitzgerald on the 2008 Philly-SIDA Academic All-Area Team for Men's Tennis are LaSalle University's Chris Butera, Haverford's Thomas Kinrade, Philadelphia University's Andres Novesky and Daniel Rubin and Tyler Weisel, both from the University of the Sciences.