UCLA’s Christine Peng-Peng Lee Named Pac-12 Gymnastics Scholar-athlete of the Year
Mar 23, 2018
Tucson, Ariz. - UCLA’s Christine Peng-Peng Lee was named the Pac-12 Gymnastics Scholar-Athlete of the Year, the Conference office announced today. The award, which is presented in each of the 24 sports the Conference sponsors, was established to honor collegiate student-athletes who are standouts both academically and in their sports discipline.
Lee is majoring in sociology and currently holds a 3.49 cumulative grade-point average. She is a three-time Pac-12 All-Academic First Team honoree and a National Association of Collegiate Gymnastics Coaches / Women (NACGC/W) Scholastic All-American.
Her achievements on the competition floor include being named the 2017 West Region Gymnast of the Year, and a 2017 AAI Award Finalist. The four-time All-Pac-12 honoree and six-time All-American was also named the 2017 Pac-12 Specialist of the Year, and has won the Pac-12 Specialist of the Week award nine times in her career, setting the record for most wins in the category by any gymnast. Lee has scored seven career perfect 10s; three in 2017 (two on bars, one on beam) and four in 2018 (one on bars, three on beam), leading the nation in perfect marks this season.
The Toronto, Ontario, Canada native has excelled just as much on the competition floor as she has in the classroom, maintaining her high GPA while leading her team to the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Championships this year. Lee is competing in her final Pac-12 Championships this weekend after helping the Bruins to a 10-2 record this season. Session 1 of this year’s title meet gets underway Saturday, March 24 at 1:00 p.m. PT at McKale Center on the campus of Arizona. Lee’s top-seeded Bruins will compete against UTAH, WASHINGTON and CALIFORNIA in the second session of the championship, set to begin at 6:00 p.m. PT Saturday evening. Tickets for both sessions are still available at the door at McKale Center and pac-12.com/tickets.
In order to be eligible for Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards, student-athletes must be seniors (in athletics eligibility) on track to receive a degree, have a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or higher, participate in at least 50% of the scheduled contests in the sport, and have a minimum of one year in residence at the institution. Each Pac-12 institution may nominate one individual per sport, and the winners are selected by a committee of Pac-12 staff members at the conclusion of each sport’s regular season. The athletic accomplishments of the nominees are a consideration in the voting for the award.
A Scholar-Athlete of the Year is named in each of the Pac-12’s 24 sponsored sports: baseball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, beach volleyball, men’s cross country, women’s cross country, football, men’s golf, women’s golf, women’s gymnastics, women’s lacrosse, men’s rowing, women’s rowing, men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball, men’s swimming & diving, women’s swimming & diving, men’s tennis, women’s tennis, men’s track & field, women’s track & field, women’s volleyball, and wrestling. The Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year Awards were established during the 2007-08 academic year.
ALSO NOMINATED: Madison Cindric, ARIZ, Nichelle Christopherson, ASU; Arianna Robinson, CAL; Dani Dessaints, OSU; Tiffani Lewis, UTAH; Hailey Burleson, WASH.