MSU Softball's Sammie Jo Bailey Receives NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship
June 25, 2009 | Softball
STARKVILLE, Miss. ? Mississippi State softball player Sammie Jo Bailey has been awarded a prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship following a stellar athletic and academic career for the Bulldogs.
The Lithonia, Ga., native was one of 29 players from the spring season selected to receive the honor. The NCAA awards up to 174 postgraduate scholarships each year, with 87 being presented to women. The scholarships are awarded to student-athletes in their final year of athletics competition who excel academically and athletically.
"Being named a recipient of an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship caps a stellar career at Mississippi State for Sammie Jo," MSU head coach Jay Miller said. "Sammie Jo has been a great representative for Mississippi State during her career. She worked as hard in the classroom as she did on the field, and we are proud to see that hard work rewarded with this honor."
Bailey was named an ESPN The Magainze/CoSIDA Third Team Academic All-American following a senior campaign in which she hit .260 with nine doubles, 24 RBI and 11 runs scored. One of the top defenders in school history, the 2009 NFCA First Team All-South Region infielder fielded at a .984 clip while helping the Bulldogs to an eighth NCAA Tournament appearance.
She finished her Maroon and White career ranked 10th in RBI (98) and at-bats (647), while her 14 career home runs tied for seventh-most in school history. Bailey's .981 career fielding percentage ranks fourth at MSU, and her 1,447 chances and 1,321 putouts both stand second all-time.
MSU's female nominee for the prestigious SEC Boyd-McWhorter Postgraduate Scholarship, Bailey has been named NFCA All-America Scholar-Athlete and Academic All-SEC three times during her career. She has also received Mississippi State's Halbrook Award (presented to the highest GPA among female student-athletes) and the Newsome Award (given to MSU softball's top GPA) on three occasions.
Bailey, MSU's first student-athlete to receive a summer internship with ESPN, was selected to the 2009 SEC Community Service Team. The Lithonia, Ga., native spent her final season in Starkville serving as treasurer of MSU's M-Club student-athlete service organization and president of the student-athlete advisory council.
During her four-year career, Bailey represented Bully Choices Student-Athlete Committee, which works with the Bully Choices Alcohol Education Program. Bailey built bookshelves and provided books for a local family through the Day One Leadership Community, and she devoted time on a regular basis to go read books at local schools through Bully's Book Blitz.
Bailey's other community service activities include the M-Club Thanksgiving Food Drive, the SEC "Together We Can" Food Drive, Operation Christmas Child, campus trash pick-up and painting paw prints on MSU campus streets.
