April 22, 2008

STANFORD, Calif. - Redshirt senior Dylan Carney (Dartmouth, Mass.) was recently named one of three finalists for the Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship. The scholarship, awarded annually by the NCAA since 1989, is the highest postgraduate scholarship honor that an NCAA athlete can be given. The award recognizes outstanding academic achievement and potential for success in postgraduate study.

Each year, the scholarship is bestowed on one male and one female athlete. The Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship Program is separate and distinct from the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Program, which provides numerous annual awards with smaller stipends.

Carney will look to be the first Stanford athlete ever to be awarded the Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship. The winner will be announced in April, after each of the candidates is interviewed. The two other male athletes in the running for the award are Kevin Nead, a swimmer for the University of Florida, and Jeffery Stepan, a forward on the St. John's University soccer team.

"It feels great to be selected as a finalist for the Walter Byers NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship," said Carney. "There are so many exceptional scholar-athletes in the NCAA that making it this far is an incredible honor and really means a lot to me. I'm also really excited to meet the other finalists, as I am sure they are all incredible people."

While at Stanford, Carney has had an exceptional career both in the classroom and in the gymnasium. He completed his Bachelors degree with Honors in Biology last June and is currently finishing his Masters in Biology. He has a 4.01 graduate GPA.

He has spent his time doing molecular biology research as a member of the Gozani Lab. He has coauthored papers in journals such as Nature and the PNAS, and in 2006 he presented his work at the Abcam Chromatin Structure and Function Conference in the Dominican Republic. He has also studied abroad in South Africa and Mexico.

In the gym, Carney has been a formidable threat at horizontal bar for the Cardinal over his career, and was a NCAA co-champion of the event in 2006. He attained an almost perfect score of 9.95 on the high bar at the 2007 Stanford Open, the nation's highest mark that season. This year, his season high is 15.450 on the high bar. He has also been impressive in floor exercise and vault, notching 9.6s in both events in the past. This year he has recorded a 15.5 in floor exercise, and a 16.05 in vault. He is a five-time All-American, with his fifth nod coming this past weekend at the NCAA Individual Event Championships, where he tied for sixth place on the high bar with a 14.7.

"Once Dylan arrived at Stanford, I knew he would thrive," commented head coach Thom Glielmi. "Having seen him take advantage of the many opportunities to do well, it does not surprise me that he is a finalist for this prestigious award."

"Of all the student-athletes I have coached, none have been able to do so much with their time as Dylan," continued Glielmi. "None have had so much success - in such varied fields as Dylan. He is a compassionate, committed, capable, and determined individual with unquestionable integrity and I am extremely happy and pleased that such a deserving individual has been named a finalist for the Walter Byers Scholarship."

Next year, Carney will look to continue his education in medical school and is considering specialties such as infectious disease and general surgery. Eventually he would like to bring his medical capacities to work abroad in developing nations.

The Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship Program was established in 1988 to encourage excellence in academic performance by student-athletes and is named in honor of Walter Byers, a former NCAA executive director. A Byers Scholar combines the best elements of academic and athletic achievement earning national distinction for his or her accomplishments, and who promises to be a future leader in his or her chosen field.

The stipend for each Byers Scholarship is $21,500 for an academic year. The scholarship amount will be reviewed every two years so that the purchasing power of the award will remain reasonably close to the award as initially conceived in 1988. If the graduate school where the Byers Scholar is enrolled provides evidence of satisfactory performance and progress, the grant may be renewed for a second year.

Last year's Byers Scholars were Dane Todd, a former fullback from the Nebraska football team, and Katie Kingsbury a tennis player for Washington and Lee University.

To read the full release from the NCAA, please visit this page.