April 29, 2008

LEWISBURG, Pa. - Bucknell senior James Meyer (Pacific Palisades, Calif./Pacific Palisades), a track and field co-captain and Patriot League scorer, received a special award at the University's annual Senior Athletic Awards Banquet, sponsored by the Bison Club and held in Sojka Pavilion on April 29.

Meyer won the Ronald J. "Pete" Pedrick Award, presented to senior athletes "in recognition of demonstrated improvement and special contributions to Bucknell athletics over a four-year period." Meyer shared the award with Victoria Gilbert of the women's track and field team.

In addition to Meyer and Gilbert, several other student-athletes were honored at the banquet, including the winners of the Christy Mathewson Award, given to the most outstanding athletes in the senior class. Rowing All-American Katherine Brewster-Duffy, won the women's Mathewson Award, while four-time All-Patriot League honoree Jason Buursma of the baseball team won the men's Mathewson Award.

A thrower for the Bison, Meyer steadily improved his marks in the weight throw, shot put, discus and hammer during the course of his first two seasons with the Orange and Blue and established a then personal best in the shot put at the Indoor Patriot League Championships as a sophomore (44-8 ¼) to place ninth. Outdoors that season, Meyer scored in the discus at the league meet, taking fifth.

As a junior, Meyer broke into Bucknell's top-10 list for the weight throw with the No. 7 mark in program history (55-7 ¾) to qualify for the IC4A Championship and claim third at the Patriot League indoor meet. He followed up by recording the No. 9 all-time mark in the hammer throw outdoors (168-0) and scoring in the event at the league championships (sixth).

This indoor season as a senior captain, Meyer improved his career best once more in the shot put (47-2 ½) and captured third in the weight throw at the PL meet indoors with a career-best and IC4A-qualifying mark of 56-1 to place himself seventh in the program's record book.

Bucknell is a highly-selective, privately endowed liberal arts institution with an enrollment of approximately 3,400 undergraduate students. Bucknell competes in NCAA Division I as a member of the Patriot League and has full membership along with American, Army, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh and Navy. Bucknell has won the Presidents' Cup, signifying the Patriot League's all-sports champion, in 13 of 17 years, including nine of the last 10.

Recently, 17 Bison programs - the seventh-most in Division I - earned NCAA Public Recognition for having Academic Performance Rates in the top 10 percent nationally in their respective sport. In addition, Bucknell ranks fifth in Division I in the total number of CoSIDA Academic All-America selections, with 114 national Academic All-Americans since 1970.