PURDUE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL PLAYER LAUREN MIOTON TO ATTEND WOODEN CUP CEREMONY

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – The Fifth Annual Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, an award given for the most outstanding role model among athletes, will be presented in Atlanta on Wednesday.   Purdue women's basketball player, senior Lauren Mioton is among the five finalists for the collegiate award and is the only female to make the cut.   The Wooden Cup is given to a collegiate and a professional athlete who have made the greatest positive influence in the lives of others. The award recipients will be announced at a ceremony held at Atlanta's East Lake Golf Club on Jan. 14.   Purdue head coach Sharon Versyp will attend the ceremony along with Mioton. The two are scheduled to fly out Wednesday afternoon and return after the event. The Boilermakers take on Penn State in Mackey Arena on Thursday at 7 p.m.   Peyton Manning, John Smoltz, John Lynch and Andrea Yaeger are previous recipients. Recipients are considered role models and athletes of excellence both on and off the field.   Mioton has been the Boilermakers' starting point guard in the last three games due to the injury to junior FahKara Malone. The 5-foot-9 New Orleans native has led Purdue to three straight wins and is averaging 4.3 points, 4.7 assists, 2.3 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 35.0 minutes in that three game stretch. She has posted career-high assists in back-to-back games, most recently dishing out seven in the 67-57 overtime win at Northwestern.    In addition to her on-court contributions and her studies, Mioton found time to organize a cookbook, "Live to Eat," to benefit the Lake Ponchartrain Foundation for wetlands preservation in Louisiana. Mioton partnered with the BOILERmaker NETwork, the Purdue women's basketball adult booster group on the cookbook project and they raised $8,200 for the Lake Ponchartrain Foundation.   This year, Mioton was crowned Purdue's homecoming queen and was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship.   Cal Ripken has already been named the recipient of the Wooden Cup award in the professional athlete category. Ripken is known as the "Iron Man" of baseball for having played in 2,632 consecutive games.  He received the third highest vote tally in the history of the Hall of Fame, and has been named by Condoleeza Rice as a Special Sports Envoy for the US State Department traveling the world as a spokesperson for character, fair play and sportsmanship.  Now a successful businessman owning several teams, businesses, as well as heading "Ripken baseball" for 800,000 kids aged 4-12, Ripken has become an American institution whose life is an example of "winning more than the game," the slogan of ABW.   The 2008 Collegiate Wooden Cup recipient will be announced at the award ceremony Jan. 14. Finalists for the collegiate division include: ·         Ryan Adler – Hobart College, Ice hockey ·         Andrew Berry – Harvard College, Football ·         Lauren Mioton – Purdue University, Basketball ·         Tim Tebow – University of Florida, Football ·         Rob Whiting – Vanderbilt University, Cross country   The Wooden Cup is named in honor of John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in collegiate history and a Purdue graduate. Wooden's legacy as a person of integrity, high moral character, compassion, and civic-mindedness continues to make him one of the most admired coaches in the history of sport.   Founded by Athletes for a Better World (ABW), a non-profit organization committed to changing the culture of American sports, the Wooden Cup is unique in that it is open to athletes in all collegiate and professional sports. Nominations come from every conference in the NCAA. Recipients of the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup are chosen by a committee chaired by Vincent Dooley, former University of Georgia athletic director, and other distinguished individuals involved in athletics across the country.   - P -