Interscholastic Athletic Association Awards Area Students

The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association honored 335 high school athletes, including to Morristown High School's Nick Vena, Delbarton's Adam Suczewski, Villa Walsh Academy's Caroline O'Connor, and Oak Knoll (Summit) student Lindsey O’Loughlin, and awarded $120,000 in college scholarships at the organization’s 18th Annual Scholar-Athletes Luncheon on Sunday, May 15.

More than 1,300 athletes, parents, coaches and school officials attended the event at the Pines Manor in Edison. Since the program’s inception in 1993, the NJSIAA has honored more than 5,700 high school athletes and presented more than $1 million in scholarships.

“I think this annual awards program is everyone’s favorite event on the NJSIAA calendar,” said NJSIAA Executive Director Steve Timko.  “It epitomizes our organization’s core mission, which is to provide education-based interscholastic athletics which support academic achievement, good citizenship and fair and equitable opportunities for students.

“The scholar-athletes we recognize at this luncheon are among the highest-achieving, most athletically-talented high school students in New Jersey,” Timko said.  “They are a credit to their schools, their families and their communities, and the NJSIAA is proud to honor them.”

Officials at each NJSIAA member high school have the opportunity to select one senior student as their scholar-athlete of the year.The scholarships, donated by NJSIAA corporate sponsors and other organizations supportive of high school sports in New Jersey, are awarded by random drawings.

All the scholar-athletes’ names are entered in the drawings for all scholarships for which they are eligible.  While some scholarships are only available to students attending schools in specific counties or participating in specific sports, most are offered statewide to students in all sports. There is a limit of one scholarship per student athlete.

Also at the event, the New Jersey Devils presented four $2,500 scholarships to preselected high school ice hockey players from Bergen, Morris and Ocean Counties.

The NJSIAA, founded in 1918, is a voluntary, non-profit organization made up of 433 accredited public, private and parochial high schools in the state.   Through its Executive Committee, the Association sets forth the rules and regulations governing high school athletics in order to equalize competition for member schools.

The NJSIAA serves over 252,000 student athletes.  The organization conducts tournaments, and crowns champions in 31 sports, more than any other state high school athletic association in the nation. Championship competition for girls is sponsored in basketball, bowling, cross country, fencing, field hockey, golf, gymnastics, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming, tennis, track-outdoor, track-winter, and volleyball.

Boys Championships are determined in baseball, basketball, bowling, cross country, fencing, football, golf, ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, tennis, track-outdoor, track-winter, volleyball and wrestling.