Class 2010

Andrew Sullivan. (Nick Pearce Photo)

Andrew Sullivan isn’t the leading scorer on the men’s basketball team. But that hasn’t stopped him from being its most decorated member.

The Dal Tigers captain is wrapping up his five-year university career with the varsity team, having racked up 391 assists and taking home the 2010 CIS Ken Shields Award. A national award, it recognizes outstanding achievement in three areas: basketball, academics and community involvement.

The environmental engineering student is a four-time Academic All-Canadian, Dean’s List scholar, Sexton scholar, and was Dalhousie’s nominee for the Rhodes scholarship. He was also one of four outstanding student leaders to win a prestigious Governor’s Award at a red carpet reception earlier in the spring.

But talking about his long list of honors can make him squirm. That’s because he’s the ultimate team player—the guy who passes the ball.

“Basketball is a team game, so if you can make the pass that leads to a basket, so much the better,” he says. “You don’t need to score—you need your team to score.”

Sure, five years studying engineering will teach you a thing or two, but Mr. Sullivan also takes some lessons from the basketball court. Things like the value of teamwork, time management, commitment and competition.

“I’m a huge fan of competition—it’s always been a huge motivating factor for me,” says Mr. Sullivan, from Riverview, N.B. “I want to get the best mark in a math test. I want to be the last guy standing in dodge ball.”

In a break from school last summer, Mr. Sullivan went overseas to teach at an orphanage in the village of Tabiro in Uganda. He brought with him 10 deflated basketballs, a hoop, pump and some old Dal Tigers jerseys to outfit a team. In his spare time, he rallied the kids to put a basketball court on a mud field and erected a makeshift backboard and the hoop on a pole made from coffee-tree trunks. Then, he taught them to play.

“They don’t have anyone, so they’re so hungry for attention from adults,” explains Mr. Sullivan, who plans on volunteering on a sanitation project in Nepal this summer. “We played some scrimmages and they actually got very good at it … the strange part was dodging the ox tied to a stake in the field, but you soon got used to it.”