MEDFORD, MA (May 2, 2024) - Women's Basketball senior
Callie O'Brien and Golf senior
Jack Meehan have been selected as the recipients of the Adrian Misic Prize, awarded by the Tufts University Department of Athletics to the male and female students who demonstrate excellence athletically and academically, and are active in work which helps improve the human condition.
Nominations were solicited from the coaching staff early in the spring semester and a selection committee chose the winners. The selection committee included Tufts Baseball alumni David Frew, A04 and David Katzman, E09, and Tufts Director of Athletics John Morris. Meehan and O'Brien will split the $2500 prize.
O'Brien was a two-year team captain of head coach
Jill Pace's Jumbos. This year she led the team in assists (63), ranking 10th in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) in that category. Last year she started for the team that advanced to NCAA Elite 8 and was the NESCAC Women's Basketball Champion. She also started for the 2021-22 Tufts team that played into the NCAA Sweet 16. O'Brien started 78 of 82 games in her career. A Pre-Med student majoring in biology with a minor in child studies and human development, O'Brien carries a 3.94 grade point average and is a three-time NESCAC All-Academic Team member.
While aspiring to be a doctor, O'Brien has worked hard to achieve that goal at Tufts. During her collegiate career, she has been a pediatric ambulatory volunteer at Boston Medical Center, and shadowed Dr. Matthew Salzler (orthopedic surgery) and Dr. Christopher Coad (ophthalmology) during the summers of 2023 and 2022, respectively. She is passionate about building awareness for populations such as those who are hard of hearing and those who have autism and face barriers in accessing adequate healthcare.
A four-year member of head coach
George Pendergast's Tufts golf team and a captain this year, Meehan led the Jumbo team to its first-ever NESCAC Golf Championship this spring. He tied for medalist honors at the conference championship. The NESCAC's Co-Rookie of the Year in 2021, he was also the conference's individual champion in 2022. He earned All-Conference honors four times (2021-24) overall, and helped the Jumbos finish second in the conference three straight seasons (2021-23) before this one. For 2022 and 2023, he was the only NESCAC student-athlete to achieve All-Conference, All-Academic and All-Sportsmanship honors in both years. Meehan is a biomedical engineering major with a 3.88 grade point average.
Meehan has also captained the Jumbos' efforts off the golf course with their Team IMPACT teammate Conor. A member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, he has participated in the team's community golf clinics with Medford and Somerville public school students. For Tufts' Oudin Lab, he has worked as a bio-informatics and population genetics researcher who has explored mutations that have appeared in both cancer and epilepsy patients to assist studies on the implications of these trends.
Adrian Misic was a young boy with brain cancer who was adopted by the Tufts Baseball team as part of the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation, which works to improve the quality of life for children battling pediatric brain tumors and other childhood cancers by pairing them with local teams, clubs and community groups. Adrian and the Jumbos formed a special bond during the team's 2009 and 2010 seasons, with his bright spirit lifting the Jumbos. Adrian passed away on September 21, 2010 at just eight years old, and this prize is one of the ways in which Tufts remembers him. Read his story
HERE.
Adrien Misic Prize Recipients
2014: Samantha Gann (Tennis), Christian Sbily (Baseball)
2015: Colby Wilkinson (Football), Amanda Wachenfeld (Swimming)
2016: Cody McCallum (Baseball), Caroline Ross (Lacrosse)
2017: Amanda Gottschalk (Swimming)
2018: Mary Travers (Field Hockey)
2019: Juan Carlos Santos-Ocampo (Baseball)
2020: (Not Awarded)
2021: (Not Awarded)
2022: (Not Awarded)
2023: Tilly Rigby (Tennis)
2024:
Jack Meehan (Golf),
Callie O'Brien (Basketball)
Â
