On Top of Their Game
No strangers to accolades, star student-athletes and Honors College graduates Sarah Agnew and Kylie Ruffule added the most important awards to their respective trophy cases at the spring commencement held at Georgia State Stadium.
Agnew accepted the Nell Hamilton Trotter Award, which recognizes the university’s highest level of student leadership — a quality she exemplified as captain of the women’s beach volleyball team, a member of WomenLead, and an ambassador for the Honors College and The 1913 Society.
Kylie Ruffule (left) and Sarah Agnew.
Ruffule is the winner of the prestigious Kell Award, given to the graduating senior with the highest scholastic average for all coursework taken at the university.
Agnew was key to the young beach volleyball program’s success. She was Georgia State’s 2016–17 Academic Most Valuable Player, won the Student Athlete-Inspiration Award and represented the team on the Student-Athletic Advisory Committee.
Off the sand, Agnew fell in love with her coursework in the Kinesiology & Health Department. As of this summer, she’s back in class at Georgia State, pursuing her doctor of physical therapy degree.
“I’m so glad I’ll get to be a Panther in Atlanta for a few more years,” she said.
Like Agnew, Ruffule’s hallmark college moments came in the heat of competition, across campus and in lecture halls.
The four-year mid elder for the women’s soccer team never missed a match and was president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. When her final soccer season wrapped up, she walked on to the women’s softball team.
But because she was determined to pursue a career in federal law enforcement, Ruffule devoted equal focus to her academic schedule.
It was a balancing act that earned her an array of accolades, including a place on Georgia State’s All-Academic Team for women’s soccer, the Commissioner’s List for the Sun Belt Conference and the 2017 College Sports Information Directors of America All-District Division I Women’s Soccer Team.
“Being a student and an athlete at Georgia State has meant the world to me,” she said.
Photo by Steven Thackston
