Army Soccer Standouts Named Candidates For Lowe's Senior CLASS Award

Aug. 31, 2009

Center Valley, Pa.--Army soccer standouts Elizabeth Betterbed and Andrew Kydes have been selected as candidates for the 2009 Lowe's Senior CLASS Award, based on personal qualities that define a complete student-athlete. It is the first time Army has had a men's and women's soccer player named candidates with 30 listed on each side from around the NCAA.

Betterbed and Kydes, the lone two Patriot League athletes to earn this nomination, join Loyola College, Loyola Marymount and IUPUI as the only schools to have both a male and female candidate.

An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School, the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.

Betterbed, has excelled on the pitch, in the classroom and military throughout her career at the United States Military Academy. The Fox Island, Wash., native, ranked No. 1 in her class since her freshman year, holds the second highest rank in the Corps of Cadets, which numbers 4,400, as the Deputy Brigade Commander. She has also been a Team Leader, First Sergeant for the Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company and Executive Officer for the Summer Garrison Regiment.

An exceptional athlete, Betterbed was selected a Patriot League all-star as a defender last year and was among four Black Knights named to the all-tournament team after helping lead Army to the Patriot League title and first NCAA bid in school history. She was instrumental in helping set a school Patriot League mark with six consecutive shutouts, while posting 12 overall, one shy of the single-season record. A starter since her freshman year who has played a myriad of positions, Betterbed was switched to attacking midfielder her final season.

A Dean's List student, the Mechanical Engineering major with a 4.235 cumulative grade point average is a 2008 CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic First Team selection, a two-time CoSIDA District 1 pick and three-time Patriot League academic honor roll selection. Betterbed posted the highest GPA among the women's soccer players in the league the past two years, and is one of five among the 60 soccer candidates to maintain a cumulative grade point average of 4.00.

In the community, Betterbed is a Big Sister to a local elementary school student in nearby Highland; volunteered at Trompo Magico Children's Museum in Guadalajara, Mexico, this past spring while spending a semester abroad studying Spanish at Monterrey Tecnologico as part of West Point's study abroad program (SAP). She was a camp counselor at Muscular Dystrophy Association camp in Gig Harbor, Wash., last summer as well as an English teacher at Uijeongbu Community Center in South Korea. Betterbed is also a Black and Gold Leadership Forum "Core" Member.

Also among her list of honors include the Superintendent's Award for Excellence, Meritorious Winner, Mathematical Contest in Modeling Phi Kappa Phi Scholastic Achievement Award and Editor, Undergraduate Journal of Social Sciences

A native of Norwalk, Conn., Kydes is one of the top cadet-athletes in the Class of 2010. A Civil Engineering major, he carries a cumulative grade point average of 3.9 which includes a 4.0 academic performance score. A three-time Dean's List and Patriot League Academic Honor Roll recipient, he landed honorable mention adidas/NSCAA Scholar Athlete All-Region recognition in 2008. Kydes has also garnered the Superintendent's Award For Excellence on three occasions for ranking in the top-five percent of his class academically, physically and militarily.

Last spring, he studied abroad at Tecnologico de Monterrey, one of the top engineering schools in Mexico. Four of the five classes he took were taught completely in Spanish. He is also a member of the Phi Kappa Phi national collegiate honor society.

This past summer, he was commended by West Point Superintendent Lt. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck for serving as the Close Quarters Combat Commander during cadet basic and field training. He was responsible for teaching over 2,500 incoming freshmen and rising sophomores the combatives curriculum along with supervising 30 instructors. Kydes was a squad leader in his company during the 2008-09 academic year, charged with guiding six freshmen and sophomores in their military, physical, academic and moral-ethical development.

Kydes has been a consistent starter for the Black Knight over the last four years, playing in every single game since arriving at West Point. One of the team's two starting central midfielders, he has earn three letters during his time with the squad.

This fall marks the third year for the men's and women's soccer division of the Lowe's Senior CLASS Award, with more than 175 student-athletes nominated in 2009.

Each of the 30 candidate classes will be narrowed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one male candidate and one female candidate who best exemplify excellence in the four Cs of classroom, character, community and competition.