Dec. 12, 2005

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Wake Forest senior soccer player Grey Ballard has been selected as one of six finalists for the John Wooden Citizenship Cup. Ballard has a 3.948 grade point average with a double major in mathematics and computer science.

The Elkin, N.C. native just completed his senior season on the Demon Deacon men's soccer team. The midfielder played in 17 games and started nine. Ballard scored his only goal of the season in a 2-1 victory over Davidson on Oct. 4.

It is impressive enough just to list Ballard's academic achievements. He has been named to the Dean's List each semester, is a three time member of the ACC Honor Roll, a member of Mortar Board, Upsilon Pi Epsilon Computer Science Honor Society and the president of Pi Mu Epsilon Honorary Mathematics Society. Ballard was named Phi Beta Kappa as a sophomore. He is on full academic scholarship as a Nancy S. Reynolds Scholar and was awarded the Kenneth Tyson Raynor Scholar by Mathematics Department. Ballard co-authored "Qualitative Behavior and Computation of Multiple Solutions of Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems" with Dr. John Baxley of the Wake Forest University. He also aided Dr. Ed Allen and Dr. David John with computational algebra research by writing code in CoCoA language to implement a computational algorithm previously implemented in Maple, a less efficient programming language. This year, Ballard interned with AECOM Consult Transportation Group to aid in the development of TRANSIMS, a simulator program used in transportation consulting and was awarded the Wake Forest University Entrepreneurial Internship Stipend.

He is well respected on his team and on campus. Ballard has volunteered weekly tutoring at local elementary schools. He is the Vice President of the Student Athlete Advisory Council and serves on the council for the Student-Athlete Mentor program. Ballard also is the Wake Forest respresentative to the ACC Student-Athlete Advisory Council and is the Men's Soccer representative to the Athletic Director's Council at Wake Forest University. He was chosen to attend the NCAA Leadership conference in 2004. Through his volunteer work and leadership Ballard has demonstrated that he is kind, compassionate and very concerned with the welfare of others. Because of his exemplary service to the community, in 2005 he was awarded the ACC/WFU Top Six for Service Award.

The mission of Athletes for a Better World (ABW) is to use sports to develop character, teamwork, and citizenship through commitment to an athletic Code for Living that applies to all of life, and to create a movement that will play a significant role in the transformation of individuals, sports, and society.

John Wooden, one of the greatest coaches and positive role models in the history of the NCAA, has given ABW permission to present an award in his name. The Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup is presented to two distinguished athletes from any sport - one intercollegiate and one professional - that best display character, teamwork, and citizenship, the attributes Athletes for a Better World deems central to transforming individuals, sport, and society. The award establishes the recipients as athletes of excellence both on and off the field, role models both as performers and persons, the most important and distinctive honor athletes can achieve.

All aspects of The Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup are managed by the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup Committee, chaired by former University of Georgia Athletic Director Vincent Dooley and composed of selected members of the National Board, the Athletic Advisory Board, and other special members. The Committee acts on policies governing the nominating, selection, and awarding of the Cup.

In order to be nominated for the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, the athlete must exemplify the values of the Code: