Malani Lee Selected as Wooden Cup Finalist
ATLANTA, GA (February 20, 2019) – USF women's soccer junior
Malani Lee was named a Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup Finalist for her extensive work bringing help and hope to underprivileged children.
The junior forward from Plymouth, Mass., has made community service a priority since the sixth grade, when Lee started her foundation called "Cleats for Kids." Since then, Lee has gathered and distributed more than 1,000 pairs of donated cleats to kids in Haiti, Jamaica, West Africa and the United States. In addition to her donated cleats, Lee has spent time gathering items such as notebooks, coloring books and instructional materials as well as jump ropes to donate on her annual visits to Haiti.
Lee has received the Individual Community Serve Award form USF Athletics, and also spends time working hard on her academics. Lee has been named to the American Athletic Conference All-Academic Team every year since 2016. When she's not with women's soccer or working on Kleatz4Kids, she spends her time as the assistant gym coach volunteer at Adams Middle School.
Lee has also been working on "Building a Better You," a nonprofit foundation working towards empowering the youth by making them more aware of the powers of social media. The program informs youth of the negative and positive effects of social media, and how they can use social media to positively impact their lives and others.
The 15th Annual Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup, an award given to the most outstanding role models among athletes. Collegiate honorees will be invited to the 2019 award ceremony to be held in Atlanta at a date this spring to be announced. Bob Ryan, the famed sportswriter for the Boston Globe and analyst for ESPN, will serve as the Master of Ceremonies.
Founded by Athletes for a Better World (ABW), a non-profit organization committed to changing the culture of American sports, the Wooden Cup is unique in that it is open to athletes in all high school, collegiate, Olympic, and professional sports. Annual nominations are open to every division and conference in college sports, and to athletes in public and private high schools across the country in partnership with the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association.
John Wooden, who won ten national championships during the years 1964-1975 as basketball coach at UCLA, is commonly regarded as the greatest college coach of any sport who ever lived. Universally regarded as one of the finest human beings to ever grace the world of sports, his character, conduct and selfless gifts stand at the highest level by any standard. When Coach Wooden learned about Athletes for a Better World, he gave authorization to attach his name to this annual award, and he attended and addressed the inaugural event in Los Angeles in 2005. In his honor, the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup is presented to four distinguished athletes, one collegiate, one professional or Olympic, and a male and female from the high school ranks, for their character and leadership both on and off the field.
The 2019 collegiate Wooden Cup recipient will be announced at the awards ceremony.
Finalists for the collegiate division include:
Abigail Abel, Purdue University
Nathan Clayberg, Drake University
Elisabeth Estep, Alfred University
Malani Lee, University of South Florida
About Athletes for a Better World:
Founded in 1998, Athletes for a Better World (ABW) exists to change the culture of sport by developing individual character, teamwork, and civic responsibility through commitment to the Code for Living. ABW's vision is to have the Code become a part of every sport at every level, so that it becomes the common language and standard expectation of behavior for everyone. ABW provides resources to coaches and athletes across the country who want to teach and live out these values. "The Code for Living" can be found on playing fields, locker rooms and athletic facilities across the country. Currently, ABW players and coaches are represented in every state and several foreign countries. More at
www.abw.org.
About USF Women's Soccer
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The USF women's soccer team has posted seven consecutive seasons of 10-plus wins and nine in the last 10 years under head coach Denise Schilte-Brown. The Bulls made their first NCAA tournament appearance in 2010 and returned in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018.
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