Gordon And NYU-Polytechnic Team Honored By President Jerry Hultin

NEW YORK – American College Cricket (ACC) President Lloyd Jodah presented Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) star cricket player Adrian Gordon with the uniform of one of the world’s most prestigious professional teams, the IPL’s Rajasthan Royals – the team with which he will practice as a winner of ACC’s Most Valuable Player award.

American College Cricket President Lloyd Jodah and Adrian Gordon (holding the Rajasthan Royals uniform) with Faculty Advisor Bruce Niswander and NYU-Poly President Jerry Hultin at the ceremony. Courtesy NYU-Poly

In a ceremony on the school’s Brooklyn campus, Jodah, NYU-Poly President Jerry M. Hultin, Athletic Director Maureen Brazel, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Cheryl McNear and ACC CEO Nino DiLoreto honored Gordon and the NYU-Poly Cricket Club.

Seventeen-year-old Azrab Cheema, a freshman majoring in business and technology management, was also recognized as the ACC’s Emerging Player. Cheema graduated from Rachel Carson High School for Coastal Studies in Brooklyn, and played in the NYC high school (PSAL) and the NYPD United cricket leagues.

NYU-Poly President Hultin, who just returned from a trip to India, introduced Jodah as a man who brought his “years of Wall St experience, and a vision to bring Cricket back into the American mainstream” to founding American College Cricket. “At NYU-Poly, we challenge our students from across the world to lead new paths, and this is what you did here,” Hultin said to the Cricket Club members. “You expanded opportunities for your fellow students, you collaborated in the same way that you do in your academics – to improve lives – and I applaud you for that.”

U.S. News and World Report ranks NYU-Poly as fifth in the nation in campus diversity.

NYU-Polytechnic team with Lloyd Jodah and school administrators.

Gordon earned his ACC Spring Break Championship Award, sponsored by Big League USA, in large part for scoring a phenomenal 145* runs in a single match and a half century in the national tournament this month in Florida. Despite an injured foot he also bowled and took 4 wickets, whilst captaining the team and acting as Coach. He and another MVP, Adil Bhatti of Montgomery College, will travel this month to India to be guests of the Indian Premier League’s Rajasthan Royals.

Gordon, a pre-med (bimolecular science) senior who will graduate this spring, lives in Rosedale, Long Island. He first caught the eye of Jodah when playing on a Queens field. Jodah encouraged him to form a cricket club at NYU-Poly, and in 2009 Gordon, together with Jodah founded the club, recruited fellow students and acted as de facto coach.

A strong, fast bowler, Gordon was selected last year to represent the United States in Bermuda at the 2010 ICC Americas Regional Division 1 Championships. At this year’s American College Cricket Spring Break Championship, he demonstrated remarkable batting skills.

In addition to the opportunity arranged by Big League USA to be a guest of the Rajasthan Royals, Gordon will also be going to England next month to practice with Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club.

Bruce Niswander, the Cricket Club’s faculty advisor and director of NYU-Poly’s Business incubators and Technology transfer, told the students: “You serve as invaluable missionaries to the United States and the rest of the world in the way you have worked together. Do not forget that as you graduate; continue what you have learned.”