California Golden Bears Athletics

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – California forward Marcus Lee is one of 30 student-athletes from men's basketball programs around the country recognized as a candidate for one of the most prestigious awards in college athletics – the Senior CLASS Award.
 
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School ® , the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
 
To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
 
Lee has started every game for the Golden Bears this season and tallied four double-doubles with season-highs of 23 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks. Beyond his on-court leadership for the Bears, Lee has been a highly dedicated member of his communities both as a three-year student-athlete at Kentucky and in his two years in Berkeley.
 
At Cal, Lee is a social welfare major who also dabbles in language classes, including conversational-level skills in American Sign Language as well as beginner-level skills in Swahili and Spanish. He is a member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and Cal's Pac-12 SAAC representative, partnering with 23 Pac-12 student-athletes to change the views on equality empowerment.
 
Among attending Cal team community service events such as serving pancake breakfasts to seniors and attending the Children's Hospital Oakland's holiday party for two years in a row, he has also solely organized a team visit to the Laguna Honda Hospital to participate in the hospital's 150th anniversary celebration and interact with patients.
 
His high-character acts extend beyond his time in Berkeley, as Lee was highly involved in community service in Lexington and beyond, earning All-NCAA Community Service, SEC Community Service and Allstate Good Works Team recognition. While at Kentucky, Lee was a two-time SEC Community Service Team member as a sophomore and junior and spearheaded a God's Pantry outreach in which members of the athletic department packed school lunches and then distributed the lunches to the needy children at the schools. He served as the liaison for Dance Blue, a dance marathon held on the Kentucky campus to raise money for pediatric cancer in 2015. He managed event production and logistics for the UK Blanket Drive, coordinating schedules, collecting donations and marketing to benefit 200 families affected by pediatric hospitalization in 2014.
 
Lee represented the SEC at the 2016 NCAA Leadership Forum, partnering with national NCAA representatives to update student-athlete time demand legislation. He was treasurer of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee at Kentucky in 2015-16. While with Kentucky basketball, he was an ambassador for the Wildcats on a trip in the Bahamas, where he and his teammates washed the feet of young children and fitted them with new socks and shoes. Lee has served as both a coach and counselor at Cal and Kentucky's youth basketball summer camps.
 
While at Kentucky, Lee was a two-time Dean's List Scholar and SEC Academic Honor Roll member while studying integrated strategic communication with a focus on public relates and direct response.
 
From the list of 30 candidates, a committee will select 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award in February. Those 10 names will then be placed on the official ballot for a nationwide vote open to media, coaches and fans. The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2018 NCAA Men's Final Four.
 
Click here to read more on Lee's accomplishments, and view all the candidates at www.seniorCLASSaward.com.