UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE

S E A W O L F S P O R T S
L O O K I N G B A C K
UAA men’s and women’s
cross country teams
reach new heights
in 2005
Above: Freshman David Kiplagat leads the pack on his
way to victory at the UAA Invitational, Oct. 8 at
Kincaid Park. The Kenyan was GNAC runner-up and
Conference Freshman of the Year, helping the Seawolves
to their third NCAA berth in five years. Right: Senior
and Eagle River native Stacy Edwards races along with
freshman Laura Carr at the UAA Invitational. Edwards
earned the fourth GNAC All-Conference finish and third
Academic All-Conference honor of her career.
UAA cross country runner and skier, Mandy Kaempf maintained a 3.88 GPA in
sociology while becoming the first Seawolf skier ever to capture multiple
national titles when she swept the 5-K classical and the 15-K freestyle races at
the 2005 NCAA Ski Championships in Vermont.
A premier Seawolf basketball player, Peter Bullock (UAA ’04) captured back
to back All-West Region and All-GNAC honors
while at UAA. He was the first Seawolf to
make three Shootout All-Tournament teams
and left UAA with seven school records. An
honors student, Bullock majored in economics
and was twice his team’s scholar-athlete award
winner. Peter is considering a career in law
or education.
Year after year, UAA recruits and educates
talented student-athletes who prove they can
balance competitive and educational requirements at the college level. These
athletes are successful students who on average maintain a 3.0 grade point
average (GPA), or better.
This fall, UAA Athletics introduced The Seawolf Legacy – a $1,000,000
campaign to establish a student-athlete scholarship endowment for each sport.
22 Accolades
Seawolf Legacy:
Athletics Launches a $1,000,000
Campaign to Establish a Student-
Athlete Scholarship Endowment
Fund at UAA
I
n a sport where peaking at the right time is essential, the UAA men’s and
women’s cross country teams reached new heights in 2005.
After a men’s title and a women’s runner-up finish at the Great
Northwest Athletic Conference Championships both Seawolf squads
focused on the all-important NCAA Div. II West Regionals where the top
three teams in each race qualify for the NCAA Championships.
The Seawolves answered with their best performances of the year. While
the 14th-ranked men took third-place, it was the unranked women’s squad
who provided the drama, edging GNAC rival Seattle Pacific by just five
points for the final NCAA berth.
It was the second straight Nationals for the women’s program, while the
men earned their third trip since 2001. UAA became the first GNAC school
to send both its men’s and women’s teams to the NCAAs in the
same season.
At Nationals in Chino, Calif., the women responded with another
outstanding race, placing 12th, led by junior Mandy Kaempf’s 46th-place
effort. The men had a tougher time but still managed 20th-place, as freshman
David Kiplagat finished 47th. A total of 256 Division II schools
compete in women’s cross country, while 236 field men’s teams.
Coach Michael Friess, in his 16th year, was named GNAC Coach of the
Year for men’s and women’s team, honors he has earned multiple times.
But, he was most pleased by the individual achievements of his student
athletes and pleasantly surprised by the success of the teams.
“From the start, the team showed a willingness to work,“ Friess said.
While there are no guarantees, the chance for success is low without hard
work, according to the coach, and this year’s group understood that, helping
make them winners.
Meanwhile, the prospects for staying atop the GNAC are even better, as
Friess loses just one senior among the top five runners on both teams, and
reloads with another outstanding recruiting class.
UAA has an exciting and vibrant athletic program with 11 competitive teams
in a broad array of intercollegiate sports. Each year, athletic programs
improve, as does the competitive environment. Of the 151 total studentathletes,
UAA currently offers aid equivalent to nearly 75. A scholarship
endowment will ensure that funds are available now and in the future to
cover the tuition, room, board, books and partial fees of
our excellent student athletes.
This endowment will allow these funds to be
dedicated in perpetuity for the sole purpose of
providing scholarship assistance for athletes. The first
of four phases, the academic year 2005-06 seeks to raise
$1,000,000. Subsequent phases have goals of $1.5
million each.
UAA competes as a member of the National
Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) in four
conferences: the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, Great Northwest
Athletics Conference, Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association and the
Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
Contact Seawolf Athletics at 786-1250 to learn more about how to
support the Seawolf Legacy campaign.
From Left: Beth Leffingwell,
Robert Barnett, David Barnett and
Bernadine and Donald Barnett
Historic photo I.D. parties bolster
UAA’s archival photo collection
A walk down memory lane is easily triggered by a photo. But
when memories fade, a photo may be all that remains to tell
the story. And, as important as the photo is in preserving a
story, only when matched with written narrative is it
guaranteed to endure.
UAA archivists maintaining the university’s photo collection
know this only too well, and have recently begun a program to
help preserve the stories behind the photos they harbor. The
concept is simple, but successfully facilitating the process
requires lots of help from the community. Simply identifying
people in the historical photos is often a good start according
to Steve Rollins, dean of the UAA/APU Consortium Library.
In the past year, UAA and the College of Fellows Library Committee
have hosted four “Historic Photo ID Parties” to help identify the photos included in
the library’s large collection of historic Alaska photos. The “parties,” which have been
held on campus at UAA’s new library, as well as with the Pioneers of Alaska,Anchorage
Women’s Club, and at Chester Park, have offered the chance for many to connect with
old friends and with the memories captured in these photos. These gatherings have
resulted in the positive identification of more than half of the photographs reviewed.
“It is very important to identify as much as possible in the photographs found in
our archival collections. The more we know about a photograph, the more valuable it
is in documenting Alaska’s history and in preserving the past,” Rollins says. “A
documented photograph can be an effective teaching tool, as well as a valuable and
unique resource for historical or genealogical research.”
UAA will continue efforts to identify more photographs from its extensive archival
collections. All are welcome at the next Historic Photo ID Party on Saturday,April 22,
2006 at the UAA/APU Consortium Library from 2-4 p.m.
Recognize anyone?
Christine McClain (center front), with Alaska
Communications System (ACS) employees,
poses for the camera in this 1954 era
photograph from the Christine McClain
(1915-1989) Collection. If you know anyone
else in this photo contact Steve Rollins at
srollins@uaa.alaska.edu
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