The best season ever for the City University Athletic Conference (CUNYAC) has just been completed, with 21 athletes garnering a total of 43 All-American honors this academic year. These students came from four community colleges (Borough of Manhattan, Bronx, Kingsborough, Queensborough) and two senior colleges (Lehman and York).

	Lehman freshman Mechelle Barnwell

All but one of these honors came in track and field. The loner was BMCC basketball forward Fanta Sissoko. A highlight of the track season was Lehman College’s team placing second not once but twice at NCAA Championships. Its head coach, Lesleigh Hogg, boasts the most honorees with six, including two of CUNYAC’s most decorated sportswomen, 11-time All-American senior Paulette Baldwin (also 2003 NCAA Indoor Track Athlete of the Year), and sophomore Alecia Watson, a 9-time All-American.

CUNYAC also sent five senior college teams to NCAA championships this year—in women’s volleyball, men’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball, and softball. At its May awards ceremony, CUNYAC also honored four competitors who have also slam-dunked their classroom work. Queensbor-ough’s Israel Henriquez has maintained a 3.62 GPA in secondary education while competing in the 800M dash and relays at such major meets as the Penn Relays and Millrose Games. He transfers to Hunter College next fall. Volleyballer Owen Niles is a three-time CUNYAC Player of the Year and graduated this spring from City College with a 3.53 GPA (he is continuing in CCNY’s 5-year Bachelor’s of Architecture program).

Brigette Burke sports a 3.4 GPA in psychology at QCC when not slugging over .500 and captaining the Tigers’ softball team. Maria Castro, of the Lehman Lightning, is a distance specialist in both track and swimming; she just graduated in multi- lingual journalism and minors in Italian and computer graphics with a 3.75 GPA and heads now for N.Y.U. and a Master’s in legal and financial translation.