UF’s Scholar Athlete of the Year is Gators Cricket’s Vijay Pappu !
- Vijay Pappu (UF) Gators Cricket President & Captain
The University of Florida “Scholar Athlete of the Year” is an award given to one student selected from 42 sports clubs at the annual competitive sports banquet in UF. The main criteria for this award is that the selected student should be associated with the club activities on and off the field and have shown excellent academic achievement.
American College Cricket’s Gator Cricket Club President Vijay Pappu was last night declared UF’s “Scholar Athlete of the Year” !
Vijay said, “We would like to keep this award in GCC for years to come as there are many in our club who deserve it as much as I do.”
Vijay expects to graduate with his 3rd MA, in Management and his PhD in Operations Research in Dec 2013. He earned his first Master’s at Rutgers in 2008, in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. He worked for 2 years before enrolling at the University of Florida in Fall 2010.
There he earned his 2nd Master’s, in Industrial Systems Engineering in Fall 2011 at UF.
Vijay is the President and the Captain for Gator Cricket Club for the academic year 2011-2012. His duties have included organizing internal cricket tournaments at UF, coordinating over 100 hours of community service and fund raising events for the club – over $1800 has been raised for the club during his tenure.
“During my stint as the Captain for GCC, UF won the South East Regional Championship for the first time, I scored 49 in the finals and had a match winning partnership of 97 runs with Ricky Nayar.” said Vijay. Only a loss to George Washington University prevented the strong Gators from making the Quarter Finals at the nationals in March 2012.
Vijay said:
“Gator Cricket Club has come a long way in terms of its development and I would like to credit American College Cricket for its growth. American College Cricket has given the university cricket clubs across the country a platform to showcase their cricketing skills and compete on a national level, providing high visibility through various media outlets like TV Asia.
The growth of American College Cricket has been exponential in the last 2 years with respect to the publicity, involvement of more universities and the sponsors. Coca-Cola’s involvement as the official sponsor for the Nationals 2012 goes to show the tremendous potential for the sport in this country.
Personally, I believe, Lloyd Jodah, the President of American College Cricket, is a great visionary and leader, and has played a monumental role in promoting Cricket in North America. He saw the great potential for Cricket in this country and has been promoting the game through the right channels. His vision for the sport is clearly evident in the fact that he was the first to encourage UF to practice with the leather ball and join American College Cricket in Sept 2010.”
