Feb. 6, 2005

Orono, Maine - The University of Maine M Club announced today that Aaron Izaryk and Kim Corbitt are the 2005 recipients of the M Club Dean Smith Award. The award is presented to the male and female student-athlete with outstanding academic and athletic achievement along with citizenship and community service.

Aaron Izaryk (Markham, Ontario) is a senior catcher on the baseball team and is co-captain this season. He was named to the America East first team in 2004 with a .287 batting average, 38 runs scored and 38 RBI. Following the season he earned the America East Scholar-Athlete Award for baseball, given to the top scholar-athlete in the conference. In 2003 he was second team America East and earned America East All-Tournament honors. His freshman season he was a named to the America East first team, All-Rookie team and All-Tournament team in addition to earning Freshman All-America honors. Izaryk is a Maine Scholar-Athlete gold medalist and is a kinesiology and physical education major.

Kim Corbitt (Albany, N.Y.) is a senior guard on the women's basketball team and is a co-captain this season. In her career she has played in 109 games and has 393 assists (3.6 per game) and 746 points, including a career -high 21 points last week at Boston University. Last season she was third in America East in assists and earned the America East Scholar-Athlete Award for women's basketball. As a sophomore she was named the America East Defensive Player of the Year and her 2.26 assist-to-turnover ratio led the conference. Corbitt is a Maine Scholar-Athlete gold medalist and is majoring in biological engineering and mathematics.

The Dean Smith Award was first presented as the M Club Scholarship Award in 1980. The award was renamed to honor Dean Smith in 1993. Dean Smith was a recipient of the Walter Byers Award presented by the NCAA. Smith, an electrical engineering major, combined the top grade-point average with the NAC scoring title as the captain of the 1989-90 men's basketball team.