Four graduating California Golden Bears were among a group of 63 student-athletes from across the Atlantic Coast Conference who were selected to receive various postgraduate scholarships to pursue professional career opportunities in their sport or field of study.
 
Olivia Sharratt of field hockey was one of only three student-athletes across the ACC to earn the prestigious Jim & Pat Thacker Scholarship Award. Sharratt also joined Matthew Waddell of men's rowing as two of the 32 who were awarded the 2025 Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford Postgraduate Scholarship Award while Torre Anderson of women's track and field and Jasper Smith-Gordon of men's gymnastics received the 2026 ACC Excellence Award.
 
Sharratt, a senior from Durban, South Africa, has started multiple games all four years at Cal including every game her junior and senior years. This past season, she had her most productive campaign as a Bear, scoring six goals and accumulating 15 points, both of which were career highs and ranked second on the team. Sharratt also posted her first-career multi-score game with two goals against UC Davis on Sep. 28. She is one of two players on the team that has earned National Field Hockey Head Coaches Association (NFHCA) National Academic Squad honors each of her four years at Cal. In addition, she was named to the All-ACC Academic Team this year as well as in 2024 and in 2023, was selected to the Pac-12 Fall Academic Honor Roll. She will graduate with a bachelor's degree in data science.
 
Waddell, a senior from Pukekohe, New Zealand, split time between the Bears' 2V8+ and 3V8+ boats last year as a junior. He was a part of the 3V8+ crews that took second at the 2025 MPSF Championships to help the Bears win the inaugural conference title and took third in the grand final of the IRA Championships. At the end of the season, he was named a 2025 Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association (IRCA) Scholar Athlete and to the MPSF All-Academic Team.  As a sophomore, he primarily rowed as part of Cal's 3V8+, helping the crew to a second-place finish at the 2024 Pac-12 Championships and third place at the IRA Championships. He was named a 2024 IRCA Scholar Athlete and to the Pac-12 Spring Academic Honor Roll at the end of the season. In his debut season, he raced in the freshman 8+ boat for most of the season, lifting the young crew to first place at the 2023 Pac-12 Championships before transitioning to the 3V8+ for the IRA Championships the same year. He helped the crew win the Stewards Cup in Cal's historic sweep of the IRAs to clinch the national title.
 
A native of Woking, England, redshirt senior Jasper Smith-Gordon is a two-time College Gymnastics Association (CGA) Regular-Season All-American (2023-24), a two-time NCAA Championships finals qualifier (2024-25) and a two-time All-MPSF honoree (2024-25) as well as the reigning MPSF champion on vault. After sitting out the 2022 season, Smith-Gordon quickly established himself as one of Cal's most impactful gymnasts in 2023, earning two national weekly awards and breaking the school record on vault (later doing so again when the scoring system changed in 2025). His MPSF title last season marked the first time that Cal has had an MPSF champion in men's gymnastics since 2018, as well as its first conference vault champion since 1987. This year, Smith-Gordon is Cal's No. 1 man on both vault and pommel horse (with a top score in the former that is tied for best in the nation) and has won an event title in each of the Bears' three meets so far. Smith-Gordon has earned the top GPA on the team in each of the past two years and has a slew of academic awards to his name, including three CGA First-Team Academic All-American honors, two College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District awards, two MPSF All-Academic nods, two Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll selections and an ACC Academic Honor Roll recognition.
 
Senior Torre Anderson, who hails from Pleasanton, has been the Bears' top female multi-eventer in each of the past three seasons. She posted Cal's No. 3 all-time pentathlon score at the 2025 ACC Indoor Championships and followed that up with a scoring (and personal-best) performance in the heptathlon at the ACC Outdoor Championships, helping the Bears' women to their most total points at a conference meet (61) since 2022. Since her arrival at Cal in the 2022-23 academic year, Anderson has excelled in the classroom, earning two All-ACC Academic and Pac-12 Academic Honor Roll selections apiece as well as an ACC Academic Honor Roll nod.
 
The Thacker Award, which originated in 2005, is awarded in honor of the late Jim and Pat Thacker of Charlotte, North Carolina. Jim Thacker was the primary play-by-play announcer for the ACC's first television network. Recipients of the award must demonstrate outstanding performance both in athletic competition and in the classroom and intend to further their education through postgraduate studies at an ACC institution.
 
The Weaver-James-Corrigan-Swofford postgraduate scholarships are awarded to selected student-athletes who intend to pursue a graduate degree after completing their undergraduate requirements. Each recipient will receive $9,000 toward his or her graduate education. Those honored have performed with distinction in both the classroom and their respective sport while demonstrating exemplary conduct in the community and were approved by the league's Faculty Athletic Representatives (FARs) at the ACC Winter Meetings.
 
The ACC Excellence Award recognizes outstanding graduates from our ACC member institutions. The goal of the award is to highlight the students embodying the student-athlete ideal. The brand of the ACC is our strong history of providing world-class education and competition. The awardees are exemplary students, athletes, and contributors to the community and society and serve as an example to their fellow students.