Jamie Natalie To Deliver Speech To Commencement Honorees – Ohio State Buckeyes
6/6/2001 12:00:00 AM | General, Men's Gymnastics
June 6, 2001
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Senior men’s gymnast Jamie Natalie has been selected to represent Ohio State in a pre-commencement dinner June 7 to honor the speakers for Friday’s graduation ceremony. The honorees include Lester R. Brown, Raymond E. Mason, Jr. and former Ohio State basketball star Clark Kellogg.
Natalie’s achievements in the gym and in the classroom helped set him apart from other students in the graduating class. As a captain of the men’s gymnastics team, Natalie claimed his second consecutive NCAA All-Around Championship and received the Nissen-Emery award as the nation’s top collegiate male senior gymnast. He also guided the team to the 2001 NCAA and Big Ten Championships and was named to the All-America, All-Big Ten, Academic All-America and Academic All-Big Ten teams. Natalie also was named the Big Ten Male Gymnast of the Year during the conference championships in State College, Pa., March 23 and was the Ohio State Male Athlete of the Year in 2000.
Natalie continued to excel in the classroom. He is a four-time OSU Scholar-Athlete and won the 2001 Big Ten Medal of Honor, given to the male and female athletes who have attained the greatest proficiency in both academics and athletics. The award includes a $5,000 postgraduate scholarship, which Natalie will use to help finance his studies at The Ohio State University Medical School. The exercise science major made the dean’s list several times and has won the University Scholar award.
“I’m basically planning on explaining my Ohio State experience to the honorees, the people receiving honorary degrees at graduation and the trustees,” said Natalie. “I’ll speak about being an athlete, but mostly it will be about what it’s like being a student at this university.” Although the student speaker generally is not an athlete, Natalie is the second gymnast in recent memory to make the address. Neil Niemi, a 1997 graduate and now in his third year of medical school, also spoke to the commencement honorees
“Jamie was chosen out of all the graduating seniors to speak at this dinner. I think this is an incredible honor,” said OSU head coach Miles Avery. “They could have chosen anyone, but they realized Jamie has really done something special with his time at Ohio State.”
The dinner, which takes place the evening before the graduation ceremony, honors those people who have made a significant contribution to Ohio State.
