STANFORD, Calif. – Stanford senior forward Erica McCall was one of 10 NCAA women's basketball student-athletes selected as a finalist for the 2017 Senior CLASS Award® it was announced Wednesday.
To be eligible for the award, student-athletes must be classified as NCAA Division I seniors and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition. An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their athletic platforms to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
The finalists were chosen by national media from a list of 30 candidates announced in January. Nationwide fan voting begins immediately to help select the winner, and fans are encouraged to submit votes online at the Senior CLASS Award website through March 20. Fan votes will be combined with those of the media and Division I head coaches to determine the winners. The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2017 NCAA Women's Final Four® this spring.
A psychology major with a 3.58 cumulative GPA, McCall has twice landed on the Pac-12 All-Academic honorable mention squad and is also a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree. She is on track to finish her studies a quarter early and graduate at the end of the winter term.
Stanford's unquestioned leader, McCall has been a team captain each of the past two seasons and has served in the same capacity for her country. The senior co-captained the United States to a perfect 6-0 record and gold at the 2015 World University Games in Gwangju, South Korea, her fourth world championship with USA Basketball teams.
McCall and Stanford are active in charitable causes throughout the community. Among recent service trips, the Cardinal visited Lucile Packard Children's Hospital earlier this week, playing games, interacting and spending time with patients at one of the country's foremost pediatric care facilities. Last season, McCall visited third and fifth-grade classrooms in East Palo Alto for her urban education class and used her visit to pen a paper on teacher-student interaction in the urban school setting.
Since the start of her junior year, McCall is averaging 15.2 points on 49.0 percent shooting and 8.9 rebounds, one of three players in the country with those numbers. She is on watch lists for the Naismith Trophy, Wade Trophy, Wooden Award and Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, and is currently 29th in program history with 1,235 career points. Her 176 career blocks rank fourth at Stanford and her 848 rebounds are ninth.
McCall's 30 career double-doubles are tied for 16th among active NCAA players and she's had 28 in her last 60 games, tied for ninth in the country over that span. In 14 Pac-12 games McCall is averaging 14.7 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game, one of 16 players in the nation averaging those numbers in conference.
In a three-way tie for first in the Pac-12, No. 10 Stanford (22-4, 12-2) travels to Cal (17-9, 5-9) for the season's first installment of the Battle of the Bay on Thursday, Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. Kate Scott, Mary Murphy and Kerith Buke have the call on Pac-12 Network and Pac-12 Bay Area.