The Lawrence North athletic department received an award from the NCAA. The award was the NCAA Team Work’s Community Champion Award 2016. This award was chosen based on different criteria such as number of people impacted, number of participants, and the significance of the project’s and impact of those affected. The Community 101 program was in partnership with this year’s Women’s Final Four Championship game. The Lawrence North Athletics and Cheerleaders were the recipients of this award. The entire athletic department participated in multiple events. They helped in local food banks, ALS Fundraisers and mentoring. The athletic department as a whole logged over 500 hours of service.

Athletic Director Mr. Penrose explains how much of an honor it was to win this award.

“This is great to be recognized by the NCAA for community service. We really appreciated being honored by the NCAA because of what we have done for the community around us,” Penrose said.

He also sees that the importance of doing this wasn’t to win an award, but do do it for our community.
“The reason we did this was not to win a award but to help someone else out or help people in need. The real award is to be able to see smile on people’s faces for helping in the community. We also participated to instill the idea of our core values at Lawrence North, which is achieving excellence, building character, and serving others. That’s what I encourage our staff to embrace. Serving others certainly builds character. We also do this because it builds community around us. So it not only helps us as a community but as a athletic department,” Penrose said.