White House To Honor Title-Winning UCLA, USC Teams
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — The USC men's tennis team and men's and women's water polo teams and UCLA women's gymnastics and softball teams will be among more than 30 NCAA championship teams from the 2009-2010 academic year to be honored by President Barack Obama Monday at a White House ceremony.
The Trojan men's water polo and tennis teams also won NCAA championships during the 2008-2009 academic year, but neither received invitations to the White House.
"We're pretty excited," said Steve Johnson, a member of the All-Tournament Team in both singles and doubles for helping lead USC to a second consecutive NCAA men's tennis championship in May.
Matt Sagehorn, who concluded his Trojan water polo career by scoring USC's final goal in a 7-6 victory over UCLA in the 2009 NCAA championship game, called having the possibility of meeting the president "one of the greatest privileges that I could ever have."
"It's special because it's been two years in the making to get to go," Sagehorn added.
Brittani McCullough, whose career-high equaling score of 9.925 on the floor exercise clinched the NCAA women's gymnastics championship for UCLA, called going to the White House "a once in a lifetime opportunity."
Megan Langenfeld, named as the Most Outstanding Player in softball's Women's College World Series for helping lead the Bruins to the championship, said if she had the opportunity to speak with Obama she would ask if he is backing efforts to have softball returned to the Olympics.
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