CLEMSON, SC – Each year the Atlantic Coast Conference honors the top male and top female scholar athletes from each league institution. The winners from Clemson for the 2011-12 Academic Year were football student-athlete Dawson Zimmerman and women’s swimmer Kerry McLaughlin.
Zimmerman graduated Summa Cum Laude in December 2011 with a degree in English and a minor in Creative Writing. Zimmerman was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society and was both a Wuerffel Award and Lowe’s Senior Class Award Finalist in 2011.
While in school, Zimmerman was a member of the Golden Key Honor Society and was named to the ACC All-Academic team in 2009, 2010, and 2011. This past April the ACC honored Zimmerman with a Weaver-James Corrigan Postgraduate Scholarship, which he plans to use to continue his academic pursuits in Children’s Literature.
On the field, Zimmerman was Clemson’s top punter the last three years, including 2011 when he helped the Tigers to the ACC Championship. He was a semifinalist for the Ray Guy Award in 2010.
McLaughlin graduated Summa Cum Laude in May with a degree in Biological Sciences and a minor in Spanish. McLaughlin has been named to the President’s List for the past six semesters and is a four-time member of the ACC Honor Roll.
This past semester, McLaughlin was inducted into Clemson’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa National Honor Society. She also was active in community service through her participation in the Solid Orange Squad with local elementary school students to implement a character education program.
The native of Chapel Hill, NC plans to enroll in the Physical Therapy graduate program at Duke University in the fall.
April 25, 2024
