COLGATE A.D. & FORMER NFL PLAYER MURPHY TO SPEAK AT CORTLAND SPORT MANAGEMENT AWARDS CEREMONY APRIL 24

CORTLAND, NY (April 20, 2003) - Mark Murphy, the starting free safety for the 1983 Super Bowl Champion Washington Redskins and the current athletic director at Colgate University, will deliver the keynote address at the 2003 Cortland Sport Management Awards Ceremony on the campus of the State University of New York at Cortland on April 24. The event will be held in Brown Auditorium in the Old Main Building. Directions to SUNY Cortland and maps of the campus are located at http://www.cortland.edu/admissions/directions.html.

The awards ceremony is organized each year by the college’s sport management program to spotlight student excellence in both academics and practical experience. The event starts at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. The following awards will be presented: Outstanding Sophomore, Outstanding Junior, Outstanding Senior, the Malone Award, the Bogard Scholarship, the Excelsior Award, the Sport Law Award, the Information Technology in Sport Award and the Wingate Scholarship.

Murphy, a member of the Redskins’ 50th Anniversary Team, has been at the helm of the Colgate program since 1992. He was also the assistant executive director of the National Football League Players Association from 1985 to 1988. Murphy earned his masters in business administration from American University and received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center.

Cortland’s innovative sport management program currently has over 260 students enrolled in its undergraduate degree program. Students in the program are provided with the formal educational foundation and the practical experiences necessary to gain access to a career in the extremely competitive sport industry. The only four-year sport management degree program in the SUNY system, it is housed in the exercise science and sport studies department in the college's school of professional studies.

Cortland Sport Management is the only sport management program in the country to directly infuse sport-specific information technology into its business-based curriculum, which is highlighted by the Sport Technology Learning Center, a collection of computer laboratories and classrooms that house the Pinnacle Systems Team Sports National Training Center.