Former University of Florida women's basketball captain Sarah Lowe recently joined The Knight Foundation's Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics as a new member. The Commission formed in 1989, born out of the concern that the commercialization of college sports often overshadowed the underlying goals of higher education. The Commission continues to work to increase presidential control, academic integrity, financial integrity and independent certification of athletics programs.
The next meeting of the Knight Commission, which Lowe is attending, will take place June 17 in Washington, D.C.
Lowe graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Florida in May 2006. She also excelled in athletics as a member of the women's basketball team for four years. She earned a bachelor of arts in political science and Spanish with a minor in criminology.
Following her graduation, Lowe received a Fulbright Scholarship to Costa Rica, where she studied the emergence of a grassroots social movement against the ratification and implementation of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR).
As a member of the women's basketball team, Lowe served as team captain for three seasons. She received numerous awards for her academic and athletics excellence including the university's Outstanding Leadership Award (2006) and the Tracy Caulkins Award, the Woody Hayes 2006 National Scholar Athlete of the Year (Women), the Arthur Ashe, Jr. 2006 Female Sports Scholar of the Year, and the SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year (2005-2006). She was also named to the University of Florida's Hall of Fame in 2006.
A Rhodes Scholarship finalist in 2005 and 2007, Lowe is an NCAA post-graduate scholarship recipient.
Lowe's community service at the University of Florida earned her an SEC Good Works Team award in 2004, 2005, and 2006. After graduation, she returned to her home state of Pennsylvania and worked with inner city girls through Katie at the Bat, a nonprofit using sports as a vehicle to empower young women. She currently serves as Development Coordinator for an emerging nonprofit, IBecome, which partners with local community leaders to equip orphaned and vulnerable children to be agents of change in their communities.
A native of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Lowe currently works as a corporate legal assistant at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP in Los Angeles.
Lowe is one of three new members, along with Sonja Steptoe and Christopher Zorich, who will be welcomed at the June 17th meeting.
Sonja Steptoe serves as client development manager at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, an international law firm based in Los Angeles. Prior to joining O'Melveny in 2007, Steptoe served as a senior correspondent and deputy news director for Time Magazine for five years following a successful career in sports journalism. Steptoe reported and wrote for CNNSI sports network, HBO's RealSports with Bryant Gumbel and Sports Illustrated. Her investigation of East Germany's systematic doping of Olympic athletes earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Journalism. Steptoe earned degrees in economics and journalism at the University of Missouri. She received a law degree from Duke University.
Christopher Zorich was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2007. A two-time All-American at Notre Dame in 1989 and 1990, Zorich played in the NFL for seven seasons. Zorich received his bachelor of arts in American Studies from Notre Dame in 1991 and his law degree from Notre Dame Law School in May 2002. He is chairman of the Christopher Zorich Foundation, which provides scholarships and other financial assistance to students and families in the Chicago area. Following his graduation from Notre Dame, he was the first student-athlete in Notre Dame's history to fund a scholarship at his alma mater.
About the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics
The Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics was formed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in October 1989 in response to more than a decade of highly visible scandals in college sports. The goal of the commission was to promote a reform agenda that emphasized academic values in a climate in which commercialization of college sports often overshadowed the underlying goals of higher education. The commission, which presented recommendations in a series of reports in the early 1990s and in the subsequent A Call to Action in 2001, continues to monitor and report on progress in increasing presidential control, academic integrity, financial integrity and independent certification of athletics programs.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities where the Knight brothers owned newspapers. Knight focuses on ideas and projects that create transformational change. For more, visit www.knightfoundation.org.
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