Date

Date: Wednesday, January 8, 2003

McGRAW TO RECEIVE GRIDIRON CLUB's SWEDE NELSON AWARD

MEDFORD – Senior Chuck McGraw (Wadena, MN/Wadeena-Deer Creek) will continue a recent Tufts University Football tradition on Friday night (Jan. 10) when he receives the Gridiron Club of Greater Boston's 58^th annual Nils V. "Swede" Nelson Award. The presentation will be made during the Gridiron Club's Bob Whelan College Football Awards Night at the Sheraton Needham. McGraw is the fourth Jumbo to receive the award since 1991, and the third in the last six years.

The Gridiron Club presents the "Swede" Nelson Award annually to "the player who by his conduct on and off the gridiron demonstrates a high esteem for the football code and exemplifies sportsmanship to an outstanding degree." The award is named after the founder of the Club and a man of acknowledged football prowess, coaching ability and humanitarianism. Nelson was a member of the unbeaten Harvard football team that defeated Oregon in the Rose Bowl in 1920.

The starting running back for Head Coach Bill Samko's 2002 Jumbos, McGraw was a team leader on the field, in the classroom and in the community. He led Tufts in rushing with 541 yards in eight games and also caught 13 passes for 75 yards to lead the team in all-purpose yards with 616. He rushed for 106 yards and a touchdown on 27 carries versus Bates on September 28, then went for 148 yards and a touchdown on 32 carries at Bowdoin College on October 5.

In class, he majors in biology with a pre-med concentration of courses. A Dean's List student in each of his seven semesters at Tufts, McGraw carried a 3.81 grade point average into his senior year. He is a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars and of the Golden Key Honor Society. His excellence athletically and academically earned him recognition on the Verizon Northeast Region All-Academic Team. He will attend medical school after graduating in May.

McGraw is also very active as a volunteer in the community. Last summer he worked at the Crossing Roads Assisted Living facility in Waltham designing and participating in daily activities with the residents. During the football season, he tutored high school students in the area of SAT math for StudySmart in Newton. As a Tufts Community Outreach volunteer during the Spring 2002 semester, he presented chemistry experiments to elementary students and then explained their concepts. For the last three years he tutored third grade students in mathematics as part of the Tufts Literacy Corp. In his final semester this spring, he will be the coordinator of the university's Big Brother/Big Sister program.

All of these personal qualities came together on the football field.

"Chuck is the most unselfish player that I have ever coached," Samko said. "He has no idea what his statistics might be. He's one of the two best pass blocking backs I have coached. He is a football player, not just a runner.

"Chuck was the most well conditioned athlete in our program," Samko continued. "He set the tone in our out-of-season conditioning programs. He set the tone in practice. Our coaches would constantly use Chuck's performance as an example to our younger players."

McGraw follows 1998 "Swede" Nelson Award recipient Eric Brum, 1997 recipient Dan Lord and 1991 recipient Paulo Oliveira as Jumbos who have received the award. The honor was narrowed to recognize New England players only in 1982. Since 1989, one player from Division IA or IAA and one from Division II or III have been chosen. Dartmouth College's Kevin Noone is the Division I honoree.