SAN FRANCISCO – Washington State senior pitcher Owen Leonard was selected to receive the Pac-12 Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) Leadership Award, the conference office announced Thursday.
 
Leonard and Shannon Williams, a lacrosse student-athlete at Oregon, were recognized for their exemplary commitment to the SAAC activities at their respective schools. Leonard is the second student-athlete from Washington State to win the award, joining former Cougar track and field athlete Cicely Clinkenbeard who won the same award in 2001-02.
 
The Pac-12 Conference established the Pac-12 Leadership Award in 2002 to recognize student-athletes who have served on their institutional Student-Athlete Advisory Committees (SAAC) and demonstrated exemplary leadership. The Pac-12 Leadership Award is a $3,000 scholarship for postgraduate study awarded to one male and one female student-athlete each year.
 
Leonard serves as the WSU SAAC Director of Events and organized a number of events including Butch's Bash, the Cougar Sports Awards and SAAC Events sub-committee discussions. In the community, the senior from Seattle has also participated as a Peer Academic Counselor, serving as an advisor for other student-athletes, served as a Pen Pal and mentor to elementary students and volunteered at WSU events including the Halloween Handout and helping incoming freshmen move into the dorms.
 
In the classroom, Leonard owns a 3.2 cumulative grade-point-average while majoring in kinesiology and earned an academic excellence award following his first year at WSU. Leonard is planning on pursuing a master's degree in physical therapy. On the field, the righthander appeared in 15 games for the Cougars last season and recorded 19 strikeouts in 19 innings out of the bullpen. This past fall, the new baseball coaching staff elected Leonard a team captain.
 
"We are incredibly proud of Owen and who he is as a person first, and player second," Cougar Head Baseball Coach Brian Green said. "Owen is a tremendous representative of what we constantly strive for in defending our pillars of inspiring the community. He has placed Washington State Athletics and the entire university in a positive light and we are very excited for him."
 
The Pac-12 Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, which is composed of representatives from each member institution, selects the winners of the award each year from nominations submitted by each campus SAAC.
 
To be eligible for the award, nominees must have completed or be in their final season of athletics eligibility, be enrolled in or plan to attend graduate school, have been a letterwinner in a varsity sport, and have served a minimum of one year on the campus SAAC. Other factors which may be taken into account during the selection process include other leadership activities, community service, grade point average, service as a SAAC officer, and level of athletic achievement.