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| | Thursday, April 6 Millers named top amateur athletes | |||||
| NEW YORK -- Kelly and Coco Miller, the identical twins who led the Georgia Lady Bulldogs to the NCAA women's Final Four last season, won the Sullivan Award on Thursday night as the nation's top amateur athlete for 1999.
The Miller sisters, from Rochester, Minn., became the first
athletes in the award's 70-year history to win as an entry, and
gave women's basketball a second straight Sullivan Award winner.
Tennessee's Chamique Holdsclaw won for 1998.
"It's an honor for us to be selected as this year's recipient
of the Sullivan Award," Kelly Miller said. "We were up against a
quality group of individuals and to be recognized as the top U.S.
amateur athletes is a humbling experience."
The junior guards helped Georgia to a 32-4 record this season -- the most wins ever for a Lady Bulldogs team -- and brought them as
far as the final eight in this year's NCAA Tournament before a loss
to Rutgers.
Kelly, an All-American, was the Southeastern Conference player
of the year and led the team in scoring at 15.4 points per game;
Coco, third in SEC player of the year balloting, was the
second-leading scorer at 15.3 points per game.
The other finalists were Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne from
Wisconsin; wrestler Stephen Neal of Cal State-Bakersfield; softball
player Stacey Nuveman of UCLA; and diver Mark Ruiz from Orlando,
Fla.
The award is presented by the Amateur Athletic Union, and the
trophy was given to the Millers during a ceremony at ESPNZone in
Manhattan.
"Kelly and Coco Miller exemplify all of the qualities that the
Sullivan Award represents," AAU president Bobby Dodd said.
"Hopefully, they will both be as successful in the WNBA as last
year's winner, Chamique Holdsclaw."
Kelly became the first player in SEC history to reach 1,500
points, 400 assists and 200 steals as a junior; Coco is just the
third Lady Bulldogs junior to top 1,500 points.
Both major in pre-med and were selected as academic
All-Americans the past two years.
In high school, the Millers led Mayo HS to a 27-0 record en
route to the Minnesota 4A state title and a No. 3 national ranking
by USA Today.
Only three other basketball players have won the Sullivan -- Holdsclaw, Bill Walton (1973) and Bill Bradley (1965).
Voting is done by more than 700 people representing the AAU
Board of Directors, the U.S. Olympic Committee Board of Directors,
the AAU Sullivan Award committee and members of the sports media.
| AUDIO/VIDEO   Coco Miller felt shocked and honored to receive the Sullivan award.wav: 106 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6 Kelly Miller felt splitting the award with her sister was very special.wav: 67 k RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6  | |||||
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