UMaine’s Smith academic honoree

COLLEGE REPORT

Deb Smith has capped her senior University of Maine softball season by being named to the second team of the Academic All-America Softball Team, University Division.

Smith, who was the North Atlantic Conference Co-Player of the Year and Co-Pitcher of the Year, sparked the Black Bears to Maine’s first appearance in the NCAA tournament. The NAC champion Bears finished with a 32-17 record.

Smith, who hails from Munnsville, N.Y., compiled a 3.6 grade point average while earning a degree in education, concentrating in sports medicine and athletic training. On the field, she hit a team-leading .399 with four home runs and 26 RBIs.

Smith put together a 19-8 pitching mark with a 1.66 earned run average and 125 strikeouts in 183 1/3 innings.

Smith has also been presented the university’s Outstanding Achievement Award for athletics. She also won the 1994 Dean Smith Award that goes to the top female scholar-athlete each year.

Bruce Bickford of Benton, one of the greatest distance runners ever to come out of Maine, has been named the men’s track and cross country coach at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass.

Bickford was ranked No. 1 in the world in the 10,000 meters by Track and Field News in 1985. He won that event at the 1988 Olympic Trials. Last season, he served as an assistant cross country and track coach at Villanova.

Bickford was interim men’s track coach at Brandeis in 1992-93, leading the Falcons to their first University Athletic Association indoor track title. He had previously been a coach and administrator for the Nike Boston Track Club from 1991-93.

Bickford is a member of the Maine Sports Hall of Fame and the Maine Running Hall of Fame. He was a four-time NCAA Division I All-American at Northeastern University where he won five IC4A titles. He was an alternate in the 1984 Olympics in the 5,000-meter race.

Paul Kariya and Deb Smith will be the guests of honor when the University of Maine Graduate M-Club inducts its new officers at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 21, in the Mahogany Room at Wells Common on the Orono campus.

The featured speaker will be UMaine athletic trainer Wes Jordan, who last weekend was inducted into the National Collegiate Athletic Trainers Association Hall of Fame.

For more information, call 581-4718.