BERKELEY – California men's soccer goalkeeper Drake Callender was named one of 10 finalists for the Senior CLASS Award on Friday.
 
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.
 
The finalists were chosen by a selection committee from the list of 30 candidates announced in September. Nationwide fan voting begins immediately to help select the winner, and fans are encouraged to vote on the Senior CLASS Award website through Nov. 18, 2019. Fan votes will be combined with media and Division I head coaches' votes to determine the winner. The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2019 NCAA Men's and Women's College Cup ® championships later this fall.
 
A product of Fair Oaks, California, Callender is a legal studies major who may pursue law school and a career in a law-related field in which he wants to help people, though that career will likely have to wait until his soccer career ends. In looking to discover his post-soccer career, Callender has spoken to a member of California Prison Focus, which helps to stop human rights violations against individuals who've been incarcerated, to learn more about what that group does in case that area suits him.
 
Callender has taken advantage of several college experiences that, he says, have helped him learn more about helping the community. One such experience was the opportunity to attend the APPLE Training Institute in Orlando, Florida, last January. He was one of 400 student-athletes from around the country who received specialized training in a certain area, and in his case it was learning about substance use in college athletics and how it compares to substance use by a student who's not an athlete. He came away from the event with a better understanding of how peer-to-peer counseling compares to adult-to-student counseling when it comes to dealing with substance use.
 
At Cal, Callender has participated in College Sports Day, an event run in conjunction with Coaching Corps and Convoy of Hope, in which various Golden Bear student-athletes engage with local underserved youth at Cal's Memorial Stadium. There, he played soccer with kids who also interacted with football players, field hockey players and many other athletes from Cal teams to benefit from contact with sports that they might otherwise not have access to in their communities.
 
Callender has also gone out on his own into the Berkeley community to directly help people by providing his old clothing and shoes to homeless and needy people around campus. "Rather than bringing it to a thrift store, I'd rather just give it to someone who actually needs it," he said.
 
As a starting goalie in his final year for the Golden Bears, Callender has posted a 0.56 goals-against average, collected five shutouts and compiled a 6-3-0 record in nine starts that included Thursday's 4-0 rout of San Diego State. In early September of 2019, he earned a training camp call-up to the U.S. Under-23 Men's National Team, which is the U.S. squad attempting to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games.
 
He showed promise earlier in his Cal career as well. After a strong sophomore season in 2017, Callender was recognized with spots on the United Soccer Coaches NCAA All-Far West Regional first team and on the All-Pac-12 first team, and he subsequently earned a place on the 2018 MAC Hermann Trophy Watch List and on the 2018 Preseason All-Pac-12 Team prior to his junior season. After that 2018 season, he garnered regional third-team and conference second-team accolades.
 
Callender and the Bears return to the field when they take on UCLA on Sunday at 4 p.m. in Los Angeles in a match broadcast on the Pac-12 Networks.