Mooradian receives prestigious Special Award
Posted on June. 20. 2020
WEST POINT, N.Y. – The Army Athletic Association announced Thursday that senior Lynne Mooradian of the track & field team has received the Academy’s Special Award.
The distinguished honor is presented to cadet-athletes who exhibit “outstanding achievement and exemplary leadership in athletic competition.” Unlike the annual AAA Award, the AAA Special Award is given only in years when a worthy candidate is deemed.
“The special award is not an annual award at West Point for good reason,” Director of Track & Field/Cross Country Mike Smith said. “There has to be a rare combination of talents and achievements worthy of recognition. The acclaim that Lynne has brought to the academy and to our program warrant that recognition. I am proud of her accomplishments and who she has become. She has a lot to offer the world and we are fortunate that she chose to share her talent with us for a short window of time.”
Mooradian becomes the 31st recipient of the award since its inception in 1966, and just the fourth Cadet to receive the honor since 2010. She is the first member of the track & field program to receive the honor since Kim Seminiano and Teresa Sobiesk in 1989.
The Hanover, Pa., native is a two-time Academic All-American, claiming the nation’s top individual academic honor as Google Academic All-Academic All-America® of the Year in 2018. She received Academic All-District honors for the third time in 2020, with this year’s Academic All-America® team being named later in June.
“It goes without saying that we are able to attract high achieving kids to West Point and Lynne Mooradian was one of those kids when she enrolled at West Point,” Smith said. “She had the academic and athletic credentials that predict success at the collegiate level. But potential is not always realized, and in my experience, it is even more rare for a heralded recruit to be significantly better than advertised. Lynne Mooradian is that person.”
The senior is a four-time Patriot League Scholar Athlete of the Year and graduates with the top GPA in the class of 2020. She received the prestigious Marshall Scholarship in 2020 and will pursue an MPhil in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge in England. Following her studies in the United Kingdom, she will serve as a Military Intelligence Officer in the U.S. Army, where she will address biosecurity and biowarfare threats.
A two-year team captain, Mooradian graduates as a four-time Patriot League individual champion and a five-time Army-Navy Star Meet individual champion. She holds three current Academy records, including the two-fastest times ever recorded by a Black Knight in the outdoor 100-meter hurdles. Mooradian appears on the Army all-time top ten list 13 times in 9 different events.