Kevin Warren, Lindsay Whalen Headline Academic All-America Hall of Fame Class of 2023

ROSEMONT, Ill. (April 11, 2023) – Big Ten Conference Commissioner Kevin Warren and former University of Minnesota women’s basketball All-American Lindsay Whalen have been selected as part of the College Sports Communicators Academic All-America Hall of Fame Class of 2023, it was announced Tuesday.

 

Commissioner Warren was a 1986 Academic All-America selection as a basketball standout at Grand Canyon University, graduating from GCU later that year with his bachelor’s degree in business administration. He went on to earn his MBA from Arizona State University in 1988 and his law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1990 before beginning a long and distinguished career in law, business and executive leadership at both the college and professional levels.

 

Whalen was a 2003 Academic All-American and a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree who graduated from Minnesota in 2006 with her bachelor’s degree in sport management. She went on to a highly decorated career in the WNBA and with USA Basketball, and recently completed a five-year tenure as head coach at her alma mater, where she is now special assistant to the athletics director. Whalen is the first Minnesota alum ever to earn a place in the Academic All-America Hall of Fame.

 

Commissioner Warren and Whalen are the first Academic All-America Hall of Fame inductees with Big Ten Conference ties since 2017, when former Purdue women’s basketball All-American Stephanie White was enshrined. They will also be the 20th and 21st Academic All-America Hall of Fame selections with connections to current Big Ten member institutions or the conference itself since the Hall welcomed its first class 35 years ago.

 

Complete biographies on both Commissioner Warren and Whalen can be found at the end of this release.

 

Commissioner Warren and Whalen will be joined in this year’s Academic All-America Hall of Fame class by Andrew Cain, a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine commander and former baseball pitcher from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and Rick Miller, a leadership and life coach and former men’s soccer goalkeeper at Bentley University. The quartet will be enshrined in the Academic All-America Hall of Fame on June 13 during a luncheon in conjunction with CSC UNITE (the annual convention for the College Sports Communicators organization) at the Orlando World Center Marriott in Orlando, Fla.

 

This year’s induction ceremony will be hosted by ESPN reporter Holly Rowe. Along with the four Class of 2023 members, the ceremony will also include recognition of the 2023 Dick Enberg Award recipient, former Tennessee basketball All-American and WNBA legend Tamika Catchings, who is the founder of the Catch the Stars Foundation. The Dick Enberg Award is presented annually to an individual who has distinguished themselves nationally through their career achievement and meaningful contributions to society while promoting the values of education and academics. It is named in honor of the late legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg, who was a tireless supporter and advocate of the Academic All-America program.

Created in 1988, the Academic All-America Hall of Fame recognizes former Academic All-Americans who received a college degree at least 10 years ago, have achieved lifetime success in their professional careers, and are committed to philanthropic causes. Honorees are chosen each year by a select committee of CSC members, leaders and past Academic All-America Hall of Fame inductees.

 

Biographies on Commissioner Warren and Whalen follow:

 

Kevin Warren, Grand Canyon University, Men’s Basketball

Warren began his collegiate career at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Quakers’ Ivy League championship basketball team in 1982. He transferred to Grand Canyon University and scored 1,118 career points at GCU, an average of 20.0 points per game. He earned CSC Academic All-American honors as a senior along with NAIA academic honors as both a junior and senior. He is one of 25 members of the program’s 1,000-point club and was inducted into the GCU Athletics Hall of Fame in March of 2012.

 

Warren graduated in 1986 with bachelor’s degree in business administration and went on to earn an MBA from Arizona State University in 1988 and a law degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1990. He spent 21 seasons in the NFL, including 15 with the Minnesota Vikings where he served as the chief operating officer, the highest-ranking Black executive working on the business side for a team in the NFL and the first Black COO in NFL history. He also worked in the front offices of the Detroit Lions and the St. Louis Rams, where he was a member of the 1999 Super Bowl winning team.

 

Warren was named commissioner of the Big Ten Conference in 2019. During his tenure, he led negotiations for groundbreaking media rights deals, helped spearhead the addition of UCLA and USC to the Big Ten Conference, established the Big Ten Mental Health and Wellness Cabinet and was a leader throughout the college sports landscape during the pandemic in the area of social justice.

 

In January 2023, Warren was named the president and CEO of the NFL’s Chicago Bears.

 

In 2012, the Warren family “adopted” Lucy Craft Laney Community School in Minneapolis, which is predominantly African American and has 98% of its student population coming from underserved communities, by donating over 900 backpacks to students. The Warrens created Carolyn’s Comforts in 2014 in conjunction with the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital and have donated $1 million to a pediatric emergency care fund, to honor the legacy of his sister Carolyn Elaine Warren-Knox who passed away of brain cancer. In 2017, the Warrens launched “No Doors Closed,” a scholarship program selecting high school students from District 191, who will be first-generation college students. The Warrens also started The Warren Family Foundation in 2019. The nonprofit foundation is organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes of educational, literacy, religious, and scientific-medical.

 

Lindsay Whalen, University of Minnesota, Women’s Basketball

Whalen is the most decorated player in Minnesota history, a career that spanned 2002-04. She was the school’s first three-time All-American selection, and a two-time Wade Trophy and Naismith Award finalist. A three-time unanimous first-team All-Big Ten pick, Whalen was the 2002 Big Ten Player of the Year. When she finished her collegiate career, Whalen was Minnesota’s all-time points leader with 2,285 points. She guided Minnesota to three straight NCAA tournament appearances and led the Gophers to the program’s first NCAA Women’s Final Four appearance in 2004. Her No. 13 jersey was retired by Minnesota in 2005. During Whalen’s collegiate career, Minnesota’s average attendance rose from 1,087 her freshman season to 9,866 when she was a senior. She was a two-time Minnesota recipient of the Big Ten Outstanding Sportsmanship Award.

 

Whalen graduated in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in sport management. She was named a CSC Academic All-American in 2003 and was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree. Whalen was selected fourth overall by the Connecticut Sun in the 2004 WNBA Draft. She played 15 seasons with the Sun and the Minnesota Lynx, was a four-time WNBA champion with Minnesota and a five-time WNBA All-Star. Whalen was named to the “W25” as one of the 25 greatest players in WNBA history in the league’s 25th season. She was a two-time Olympic gold medalist with the U.S., winning at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympic Games.

 

Upon retirement in 2018, Whalen was named the 12th head women’s basketball coach at Minnesota, and recently stepped away from coaching to become a special assistant to the athletics director at Minnesota.

 

She has donated her time and talents to several organizations focused on youth development such as the Timberwolves Lynx Basketball Academy and Athletes Committed to Educating Students (ACES). She previously served on the board of directors for former coach Pam Borton’s Empower Leadership Academy for Girls, and participated in the Minnesota Lynx’s Day of Service initiative, including celebrating the team’s 2017 WNBA title by helping at a Samaritan’s Feet Shoes of Hope distribution in Washington, D.C. As head coach of the Gophers, Whalen organized an annual Dimes for December campaign, raising money to buy gloves, hats, blankets, socks, scarves, and jackets to help the homeless and underprivileged families in the community.

 

Big Ten Conference (bigten.org) is an association of world-class universities whose member institutions share a common mission of research, graduate, professional and undergraduate teaching, and public service. Founded in 1896, Big Ten Conference has sustained a comprehensive set of shared practices and policies that enforce the priority of academics in the lives of students competing in intercollegiate athletics and emphasize the values of integrity, fairness, and competitiveness. The broad-based programs of the 14 Big Ten Conference institutions will provide over $200 million in direct financial support to more than 9,800 students for more than 11,000 participation opportunities on 350 teams in 42 different sports. Big Ten Conference sponsors 28 official conference sports, 14 for men and 14 for women, including the addition of men’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s lacrosse since 2013.