WASHINGTON, D.C. The Tewaaraton Foundation has named former Cornell University lacrosse star and National Lacrosse Hall of Famer Eamon McEneaney as the recipient of the second annual Tewaaraton Legends Award.
A three-time All-American lacrosse player at Cornell (1975-77), McEneaney led the Big Red to consecutive undefeated seasons and NCAA Division I titles in 1976 and 1977. As a sophomore in 1975, he earned the Turnbull Award as the nation’s best attackman and was named the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) Player of the Year. Selected as the most outstanding player of the 1977 NCAA championship game, McEneaney went on to represent the United States in the 1978 World Lacrosse Championships. He was inducted into the Cornell Sports Hall of Fame in 1982 and the National Lacrosse Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1995, he was named to the NCAA's Silver Anniversary Lacrosse Team as one of the top 25 players of the first quarter century of NCAA lacrosse.
McEneaney was among the victims of the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, where he worked as an employee of the securities firm Cantor Fitzgerald. His jersey number 10 was posthumously retired by Cornell University on April 27, 2002.
The Tewaaraton Legends Award is presented annually to one recipient who played college lacrosse prior to 2001, the first year in which the Tewaaraton Award was presented. Recipients are honored on the basis that their collegiate performance would have earned them a Tewaaraton Award, had the award existed when they played.
McEneaney is the second recipient following former Syracuse University lacrosse star and NFL Hall of Famer Jim Brown who was the inaugural recipient of the Tewaaraton Legends Award in 2011.
“Eamon is a symbol for all that the Tewaaraton Award represents – excellence, effort and enthusiasm for the game,” said Jeff Harvey, Chairman of The Tewaaraton Foundation. “We look forward to celebrating his exceptional life and lacrosse career.”
“I can not imagine a more worthy recipient of The Tewaaraton Foundation’s Legends Award, as Eamon McEneaney is a true legend by any measure,” said J. Andrew Noel, Jr., The Meakem Smith Director of Athletics and Physical Education at Cornell University. “Not only does he universally rate as one of the most talented and unselfish athletes to pick up a lacrosse stick, but he made an even more profound impact through his competitive spirit, courage, leadership and generosity. In the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, he is credited with helping to save 65 employees whom he led down a stairwell, thick with black smoke, by organizing a human chain. Eamon is often touted as the toughest athlete, 'pound for pound,' that ever wore a Cornell jersey. I have never heard this reputation challenged. We have all been fortunate to be touched, directly or indirectly, by the legacy he has left to the game he loved.”
Eamon’s wife, Bonnie, will accept the award in his honor at the Tewaaraton Award Ceremony, May 31, 2012 at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.
For more information on the Tewaaraton Legends Award or to purchase tickets to the Tewaaraton Award Ceremony, please visit www.tewaaraton.com.
About The Tewaaraton Foundation:
First presented in 2001, the Tewaaraton Award is recognized as the pre-eminent lacrosse award, annually honoring the top male and female college lacrosse player in the United States. Endorsed by the Mohawk Nation Council of Elders and US Lacrosse, the Tewaaraton Award symbolizes lacrosse’s centuries-old roots in Native American heritage. The Tewaaraton Foundation ensures the integrity and advances the mission of this award. Each year, the Tewaaraton Award celebrates one of the six tribal nations of the Iroquois Confederacy – the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora – and presents two scholarships to students of Iroquois descent. To learn more about The Tewaaraton Foundation, please visit Tewaaraton.com.
Explore All Brands
