WALLA WALLA, Wash. – Laura Valaas, a Whitman College senior from Wenatchee, Wash., who excels in both Nordic skiing and cycling, is one of the college student-athletes who will be featured in the February episode of NCAA on Campus, which airs nationally on the Fox Sports Network (FSN).
Fox Sports Northwest will show the episode at 3 p.m. (Pacific time) on Monday, Feb. 13. In the Walla Walla area, the show airs on Charter Cable, Channel 37. FSN affiliates around the nation will broadcast the episode at various times, in most cases on Feb. 13 and 14.
Valaas, an All-American in skiing and a national champion in cycling, was named last spring to ESPN The Magazine’s Academic All-District At-Large Team. She is majoring in mathematics at Whitman with minors in physics and gender studies.
"The NCAA has chosen a great example in Laura Valaas to illustrate the best and brightest of America's student athletes," Whitman Nordic ski coach Nathan Alsobrook said. "Whitman is a place of opportunity, where we strive to support our students in both their academic and athletic pursuits. Laura works very hard in both areas, which makes her many accomplishments very well deserved."
NCAA on Campus is a monthly 30-minute look at the challenges and achievements of student-athletes in all three Divisions of the NCAA. Other athletes featured in the February episode include Columbia University’s K.J. Matsui, the first native Japanese basketball player to appear in a Division I game, and the University of Oklahoma’s Teyon Ware, a two-time national champion in wrestling.
In early January, Valaas became the first American-born skier in nearly two years to win a women’s Nordic race in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association (RMISA), which represents 11 schools in the western U.S. that compete in NCAA skiing. With an enrollment of about 1,400 students, Whitman is the only Division III school in the ski conference.
In other races in early January, Valaas placed third in the freestyle sprint at U.S. Nationals, winning a bronze medal in a field of Olympic hopefuls. While Valaas wasn’t named to the U.S. Olympic Team, which was announced later in January, she did represent the U.S. at the recent Under-23 World Cross Country Championships in Slovenia.
In March, Valaas will compete for a second consecutive year in the NCAA Championships. A year ago, she earned All-American honors in two events, placing fifth in the classic and ninth in the freestyle.
Later this spring, Valaas will help the Whitman women’s cycling team defend the National Collegiate Cycling Association (NCCA) Div. II title it won a year ago.
After graduating from Whitman in May, Valaas plans to apply to graduate schools in mechanical engineering while continuing her athletic career as an elite skier. Her long-range goal is to make the 2010 U.S. Olympic Team.
Dave Holden, Whitman Sports Information,
(509) 527-5902; holden@whitman.edu