Kentucky softball's Lauryn Borzilleri and Trinity (Texas) cross country/track and field's Thomas Melina Raab have been named the 2026 recipients of the NCAA Jim McKay Graduate Scholarship.
Each student-athlete will receive a $10,000 scholarship to be applied toward graduate study.
The McKay Scholarship, established in 2008, honors pioneering sportscaster Jim McKay by supporting student-athletes who exemplify his commitment to leadership, integrity and the pursuit of excellence in sports communications.
McKay, best known for his decades hosting ABC's "Wide World of Sports" and his landmark coverage of the 1972 Munich Olympics, embodied the belief that sports were a lens through which the full scope of human experience could be understood.
Lauryn Borzilleri, Kentucky softball
Borzilleri earned Southeastern Conference First-Year Academic Honor Roll honors in 2023 and a spot on the SEC Academic Honor Roll in 2024 and 2025. She also has been on the dean's list every semester at Kentucky.
A three-year letter winner with nearly 140 games played, she was named Team Defensive MVP and was voted a team captain for the 2025 season. She has chaired Kentucky's Beyond Blue Zone, a student-athlete mental health initiative, and served as a team representative on the school's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
Her career goals in communications took shape during an eight-week internship with the Kentucky athletics communications department, where she assisted with content creation for the primary athletics social media accounts, as well as the softball and volleyball team accounts. She also produced emails for season ticket holders.
Borzilleri plans to pursue a master's degree in communication at Kentucky while completing her final season of eligibility in 2027.
"I would like to sincerely thank the committee representing the Jim McKay Scholarship for their selection. There have been countless impactful people at the University of Kentucky who have helped me along the way with this scholarship who I need to thank individually, including head softball coach Rachel Lawson, Amy Craiglow and Stephanie Simmons," Borzilleri said.
"I look forward to honoring Jim McKay's profound legacy through my work in the media ecosystem with this scholarship."
Thomas Melina Raab, Trinity (Texas) cross country/track and field
Melina Raab earned College Sports Communicators Academic All-District honors in 2025 and Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference and Southern Athletic Association academic honor roll recognition six times.
A distance runner, Melina Raab posted or contributed to five top-five times in school history, including the second-best times in the outdoor 1,500 meters and the indoor distance medley relay. Melina Raab was a contributor to the team's 2025 cross country championship, as well as SCAC championships in outdoor track and field in 2023 and 2024.
Melina Raab's passion for sports communications is reflected in his honors thesis, which examines how journalistic coverage of Black athlete activism has evolved since Tommie Smith and John Carlos' 1968 Olympics protest. He also wrote a paper that explored the 1936 Olympics as an instrument of Nazi propaganda. Professionally, Melina Raab has authored profiles for USA Basketball focused on the human stories behind the statistics and served as a staff writer for the Trinity athletics department. He also has served as a communications assistant for the San Antonio Spurs and has completed internships with San Antonio Sports and The Nature Conservancy.
Melina Raab will pursue a master's degree at North Carolina's Hussman School of Journalism and Media, with a concentration in theory and research.
"Sports are a microcosm of society, and athletes are more than just figures with a ball in their hands. Few working in the sports communication industry knew that to be true quite like Jim McKay," Melina Raab said of receiving the scholarship. "His legacy of humanizing coverage and his understanding of sports as a phenomenon extending beyond the field, the court or the track changed perceptions of athletics forever. It also helped set me on a path to do the same."
The Jim McKay Graduate Scholarship is awarded annually to one male and one female student-athlete who have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement, meaningful involvement in intercollegiate athletics and a clear commitment to a career in sports communication or media. Recipients are selected by an NCAA committee.
