NCAA honors Alfonso with award

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Alex Alfonso of DePauw received an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship recently.

Alex Alfonso, a 2015 DePauw graduate and a member of the men's swimming and diving team, has earned the NCAA's prestigious Post-Graduate Scholarship.

In the year since graduation, Alfonso has moved to Israel where he is participating in The Center for a Shared Society at Givat Haviva. A non-profit organization founded in 1949 by the Kibbutz Federation, Givat Haviva aims to build an inclusive, socially cohesive society in Israel by engaging divided communities in collective action towards the advancement of a sustainable, thriving Israeli democracy based on mutual responsibility, civic equality and a shared vision of the future.

Alfonso, a native of New Albany, Ohio, graduated Magna Cum Laude while earning a bachelor of arts and majoring in both religious studies and conflict studies. He also posted the highest cumulative grade point average of any DePauw male student-athlete who graduated last May and earned the Phil Eskew Award as DePauw's top senior make student-athlete.

Alfonso competed at the NCAA Championships each of his four seasons, earning all-America honors four times and honorable mention all-America accolades on nine occasions.

He was part of the 400-yard freestyle relay that finished in the top six each of the last three years. Alfonso helped lead the Tigers to top-20 finishes at all four NCAA Championships including an 11th-place finish this year which matched the program's best.

During his four years of North Coast Athletic Conference competition, he earned all-conference honors in one individual event and as part of 10 relays. Alfonso holds the school record for the 200 individual medley and as part of the 200 free, 400 free and 200 and 400 medley relays.

A Chi Alpha Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa inductee, Alfonso was a member of Theta Alpha Kappa and Phi Alpha Theta honor societies. He also was a Fulbright Academic Grant finalist and a recipient of a Columbus Foundation Summer Fellowship. Alfonso served as president of DePauw's Hillel and was the lead intern for the Interfaith program. In 2012, he participated in a May Term trip to Uganda.

Alfonso is one of 58 student-athletes and just 29 males among all three NCAA divisions who earned the honor for the winter of 2015-16. The one-time grants of $7,500 each are awarded each fall, winter and spring to 29 men and 29 women each season for a total of 174 scholarships each academic year.

NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship

DePauw Winners

1968 -- Bruce Montgomerie (football)

1969 -- Tom McCormick (men's basketball)

1970 -- Richard Tharp (men's basketball)

1972 -- Steve Overman (men's basketball)

1973 -- Gordon Pittenger (men's basketball)

1977 -- Mike Kinney (men's track and field)

1978 -- Mark Frazer (football)

1981 -- Jay True (football)

1985 -- Rich Bonaccorsi (football)

1986 -- Tony de Nicola (football); Phil Wendel (men's basketball)

1988 -- Nancy Gritter (women's swimming and diving)

1992 -- Tom Beaulieu (football)

1998 -- Charee Campbell (women's swimming and diving)

1999 -- Susan Bender (women's basketball)

2001 -- Adrienne Gough (women's cross country/track & field)

2003 -- Katie Reis (women's swimming and diving)

2010 -- Megan Soultz (softball)

2012 -- Catie Baker (women's swimming and diving)

2014 -- Jack Burgeson (men's swimming and diving); Alex Gasaway (women's basketball); Paige Gooch (women's golf)