CHRIS LEANZA NAMED MALLORY AWARD WINNER
Basketball Star Selected Yale’s Top Male Athlete

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Chris Leanza, only the 18th player in Yale men’s basketball history to score 1,000 career points, was the recipient of the William Mallory award, the most prestigious athletic award given to a senior male at Yale, at the Class Day exercises on May 25.
The award is presented to the senior man who on the field of play and in life at Yale best represents the highest ideals of American sportsmanship and Yale tradition and is named in honor of the Yale Class of 1924 athlete.
Leanza, a two-time All-Ivy selection and Parma, Ohio, native, helped lead the remarkable turnaround of the Yale men’s basketball program. The year before he arrived in New Haven, the Bulldogs won only four games, but by the time his career ended, Yale had won its first Ivy League title since 1963, earned the first post-season victory in the 107-year history of the program and enjoyed back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in more than a decade.
“Chris will hold a special place with me and with the basketball program,” said head coach James Jones. “He has helped put Yale basketball back on the map and is the kind of person and player that we look to recruit in the future because he embodies everything this great university stands for.”
Leanza, who overcame a serious shoulder injury that forced him to miss much of his junior year, is second all-time at Yale with 177 three-pointers. As a senior, he was the team captain and led the Bulldogs in three-pointers (47) and was third in scoring (9.8 ppg.). He capped his outstanding career by scoring 30 points, including his 1,000th, in a victory over Harvard in the final weekend of the regular season. He was named second team All-Ivy and also was an Academic All-Ivy selection.
In 2001-02, Leanza returned to the lineup following his injury for the start of Ivy League play and helped lead the Bulldogs to the Ivy title and a berth in the National Invitation Tournament. In the memorable NIT victory at Rutgers he made three crucial three-pointers in the second half and finished with 11 points.
As a sophomore, Leanza led Yale in scoring (13.3 ppg.) and assists (95) despite not being able to practice because of his injury. His 70 three-pointers were only two shy of the Yale single season record, and he tied the school record by making eight three-pointers en route to scoring 33 points against Vermont. In the Ivy League, he was ninth in scoring, sixth in assists, third in three-pointers and sixth in steals.
“Without Chris, I don’t know if we would have won one game that year,” Jones said. “The sacrifices he made for the coaches and the players were felt for years to come.”
As a freshman, Leanza was named Ivy League Rookie of the Week three times and led Yale in assists (87), three-pointers (51) and free throw percentage (.782). Against Columbia he had one of the best games ever by a freshman at Yale when he scored 33 points, only six shy of Tony Lavelli’s school freshman record.
Leanza is an economics major at Yale and is a member of Saybrook College. He is a graduate of Benedictine High School.