Krissy Lacik Selected to Receive Inaugural John Smillie Award
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Krissy Lacik Selected to Receive Inaugural John Smillie Award
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DOBBS FERRY, NY - Mercy College sophomore softball player Krissy Lacik (Edison, NJ) has been selected as one of three recipients of the inaugural John Smillie Award, the East Coast Conference (ECC) announced on Thursday. This award was created to celebrate student-athletes who have overcome personal or physical challenges and hardships to pursue their intercollegiate athletic careers. Junior Linda Velaj from the University of Bridgeport and senior Ettore Morelli from Molloy are the other recipients.
Lacik, an outfielder, suffered what could have been a career-ending injury before it ever really got started. In the fifth inning of the second game of her freshman season (2008) at Georgian Court, she collided with teammate Alicia Martin (Massapequa, NY) going after a fly ball. When she tried to get up and chase the ball down, her body didn't follow. Lacik couldn't get up as she had torn the Anterior Cruciate Ligament, Medial Collateral Ligament, Posterior Cruciate Ligament, Posterior Oblique Ligament and both menisci in her right knee.
Two weeks later she had the knee surgically repaired and began rehabilitation shortly after. The doctor first told her it would be 8-12 months of rehabilitation before she might be able to start to play again. She worked hard with her physical therapist and defied the doctor's prognosis, getting cleared to begin some softball activities just five months later and was fully cleared to resume full softball participation in January of 2009. When she was cleared, her doctor then told her that he did not expect her to be able to ever play again at first, but did not want to tell her that for risk of Krissy not completing the rehabilitation.
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Not only did she play again, she completed her first full season for the Mavericks in 2009, playing and starting in the outfield all 34 games with a solid .299 batting average, five doubles, two home runs, and ranked second on the squad with 20 runs batted in. She played a major role in helping the Mavericks to their most successful season since 1987, winning 16 games and becoming a legitimate threat in the ECC.
Along with her success on the field, she is just as competitive in the classroom, earning a spot on the ECC Commissioner's Honor Roll and compiling a 3.32 cumulative grade point average. During the semester of her injury, she continued her studies online with the cooperation of her professors, posting a 3.5 grade point average. Lacik is also active as a representative with the Mercy College Student Athlete Advisory Committee, directing efforts that helped raise over a $1,000 for the Mavericks' Pink Zone initiative to benefit the Kay Yow/WBCA Cancer Fund this year along with other fundraisers. She is an Occupational Therapy major and would like to work at a school and help children with disabilities when she graduates.
John Smillie,
Jr. Award
The John Smillie, Jr. Award is presented annually by the Sports
Medicine Staff members of the East Coast Conference institutions to
the student-athlete or student-athletes who have overcome personal
and/or physical challenges and hardships to participate and
contribute to their institution's intercollegiate athletic program.
This award is named for John Smillie, Jr. who served as Athletic Trainer at New York Institute of Technology and cared for NYIT and East Coast Conference team members for 14 years with caring, compassion and unselfishness prior to his passing in December 2008.
About Mercy
College
Mercy College is a private, nonprofit institution founded in 1950,
providing motivated students with the opportunity to earn degrees
in over 90 undergraduate and graduate programs within five schools:
Business, Education, Health and Natural Science, Social and
Behavioral Science, and Liberal Arts. An engaging and
personalized learning experience is offered at the main campus in
Dobbs Ferry, as well as campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan, Yorktown
Heights and White Plains. www.mercy.edu 877-MERCY-GO
