The Portland Tribune

So you’re worried about the quality of today’s collegiate student-athlete, with those too-frequent headlines raging about academic improprieties, malfeasant behavior, cheating and/or just plain lousy comportment?

Well, me, too.

But David Kinsella and Liz Doran give me hope.

Kinsella, 23, recently graduated from the University of Portland with a 3.96 GPA in biology. He’ll be off to Stanford in August to begin three years of work on a law degree.

Doran, 22, is a graduate of Crescent Valley High in Corvallis who recently completed her undergrad work at Santa Clara with a 3.93 GPA in bioengineering. She’ll enroll Saturday in a four-year doctorate program at Idaho.

Last week, Kinsella and Doran were named the male and female recipients of the sixth annual West Coast Conference’s postgraduate scholarship award. Both will be given $5,000 to help with their postgraduate studies.

Kinsella was one of the best runners in UP history, a three-time All-American who won the WCC cross-country title as a senior last fall.

“David’s not just a runner, though, obviously,” Pilot coach Rob Conner says.

Kinsella’s not just an egghead, either. Neither is the 6-foot Doran, a two-year starting shooting guard at Santa Clara who was second on the Broncos in scoring and led the team in 3-pointers as a senior this season.

“Liz was a fine player for us, but she was just a fantastic student-athlete,” says Jason Stock, the academic support manager for Santa Clara men’s and women’s basketball. “She was a great member of the team for the last four years, both on and off the court.”

Kinsella, a Redmond, Wash., native, had three A-minuses in his five years at The Bluff.

Doran got one B and a few A-minuses during her time at Santa Clara. “I kind of got the hang of the school thing,” she says with a laugh.

That despite a grueling academic regimen that left her wanting for 30-hour days.

“It was doable,” Doran says. “The thing that gets pushed in the side is social life a little bit.

“I give a lot of credit to the coaches and to Jason for scheduling practice around my labs. I ended up taking a lot of labs in the springtime. My sophomore year I had four labs, one for just about every afternoon of the week.”

Doran thinks she would like to teach or go to medical school. Kinsella is keeping his options open, too.

“I’m going to take a strong, hard look at environmental law,” he says. “It’s between that and technology law. I’m interested in intellectual property and personal liberties in the context of the Internet. I want to go down (to Stanford), get my hands on things and see what really strikes my fancy.”

“He’s looking forward,” Conner says drily, “to finally being able to push himself academically.”

Kinsella placed eighth in the NCAA cross-country championships in 2007 and fourth in 2008,. He was 12th in the 10,000 meters at the 2007 NCAA track and field championships.

He could have done even better, if not for nagging leg injuries that cost him partial and full seasons in both sports, including his senior year in track.

“David would have had his best track season this year,” Conner says. “He’d have qualified for the Olympic Trials easily and would have been the only guy between (Oregon’s) Galen Rupp and third place in the NCAA 10,000. Only six guys have ever been under 28 (minutes) in college, but he’d have done it this year, guaranteed. He just didn’t get to prove it.”

Kinsella takes a philosophical approach to being injury-prone, looking only in the mirror for blame.

“I’m a bit of a biomechanical nightmare,” he observes. “I must have been fortunate enough to be born with big lungs or something to compensate, because I have horrible running form. When you’re running 100 miles a week, any little error is going to be magnified over the course of all that training.

“But it was sort of a curse and a blessing. I left the college athletic scene in a forced manner. Some people might see that as bad. But it was nice because I didn’t just finish nationals, and suddenly I’m a grad student, and it’s like, what do I do with my life? The injuries forced me to step back and realize the transition is coming and I might as well prepare for it.”

When he looks back at highlights, Kinsella doesn’t remember individual glory.

“Easily, the best times were being with teams that finished seventh in NCAA cross-country in 2005 and 2008,” he says. “To come away with the school’s best finish twice with two different groups of guys, that was fun. That crystallized my experience at UP.”

Kinsella is interning this summer at the Crag Law Center, an environmental justice law firm in Portland.

“It’s a chance to get in some work before I start the hell that is supposed to be law school,” he says. “I’m really fortunate and appreciative of the opportunity. It’s fun to be doing stuff that means something to you.”

Conner, in his 19th year coaching at Portland, hasn’t come across many like Kinsella.

“We’ve had high-level academic people, but he’s the kind of talent academically and athletically who normally would be off to a major institution for either athletics or academics – not both,” the UP coach says.

“To have the privilege to work with him for five years is something I’ll always cherish.”

Kinsella says he would love to end up in Portland. Doran says she may return to Oregon, too.

“It was snowing in Moscow (Idaho) last week,” she says, adding with a laugh, “I signed up for four years of that?”

Kinsella and Doran are the type of youngsters who have made their parents and coaches proud – and the rest of us, too.

Maybe there’s hope after all.