CHAPEL HILL – Field hockey national champion and national player of the year Ashley Hoffman and national champion and two-time Academic All-America Luke Maye are the 2019 recipients of the Patterson Medal, the most prestigious athletic honor awarded at the University of North Carolina.
The Patterson Medal is based primarily on career athletic accomplishments. The recipients must have played at least three seasons for the Tar Heels. Sportsmanship and leadership are also considered. Dr. Joseph Patterson first presented the medal in 1924 to honor the memory of his brother, John Durand Patterson.
Hoffman started all 96 games in her Tar Heel career, leading UNC to three Atlantic Coast Conference championships and a national title. As a senior in 2018, the Mohnton (MOE-ton) Pa., native captained the Tar Heels to a perfect 23-0 season, including the ACC and NCAA Tournament championships. She won the Honda Sport Award as the country’s top player and was a first-team All-America and ACC Defensive Player of the Year, and earned Most Valuable Player honors in both the ACC and NCAA Tournaments.
She is the first field hockey player to win National and ACC Player of the Year honors and NCAA and ACC Tournament MVP awards in the same season.
“I was so surprised and honored to hear that I’d won the Patterson Medal,” said Hoffman, who had just landed in China with the USA Field Hockey National Team when she received a call from Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham giving her the good news. “It’s incredible to be included with the previous field hockey winners – Cindy Werley (1998), Rachel Dawson (2008), Katelyn Falgowski (2012) and Emily Wold (2016) – and on the list of winners from all the sports at UNC. To be included among Carolina greats like Mia Hamm is a unbelievable honor and one that I am extremely proud of.
“I knew when I decided to come to North Carolina that I was going to be part of an extremely successful tradition, and that proved true throughout my time in Chapel Hill. To now be recognized as a winner of the Patterson Medal is amazing. I’m so proud to be a UNC graduate and I’ll always be part of the Carolina family. “
Throughout her career, she was a key player for the Tar Heels on both ends of the field. As a senior, she played center back for a defense that gave up just 16 goals in 23 games and tallied 10 shutouts, including the 2-0 win over Maryland in the NCAA final. She ranked second on the team in scoring with a career-best 16 goals and 39 points, serving as UNC’s primary hitter on penalty corners and also connecting on a walk-off penalty stroke that ended Carolina’s only overtime contest of the season, a 2-1 win over Iowa.
Hoffman earned first-team All-ACC honors three times and was a two-time ACC Defensive Player of the Year, ACC Tournament MVP and first-team All-America. A sociology major with a minor in education, she graduated in December of 2018, earned Academic All-ACC honors three times and was named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll. After balancing a role with the U.S. National Team from her sophomore year on, she now trains full-time with Team USA.
Hoffman was the fifth field hockey player to have her jersey retired by Carolina, and also is the fifth to win the Patterson Medal.
“I’m so proud of Ashley and the career she had here at UNC,” says head coach Karen Shelton. “Throughout her time in Chapel Hill, she was a leader and a driving force behind our success. That culminated in her senior year, when she led us to one of those seasons that coaches and players dream about. She set the tone for what was an unforgettable year and she didn’t just take over – she made sure her teammates were right there beside her. She distinguished herself on and off the field as an outstanding teammate in addition to an outstanding player. I can’t imagine a Tar Heel more deserving of the Patterson Medal.”
Maye grabbed more rebounds in consecutive seasons than any Tar Heel ever, became the first Tar Heel to score 30 points in games at both Duke and NC State and became the first Tar Heel to average a double-double in points and rebounds in consecutive seasons in more than 40 years. His game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds to play to beat Kentucky in the 2017 NCAA South Regional final that sent UNC to the Final Four where it won the NCAA title will forever be remembered as one of the most memorable plays in college basketball history.
Maye earned Most Outstanding Player honors in that regional – with 16 points and 12 rebounds in the Sweet 16 win over Butler and 17 points in the Elite Eight triumph over the Wildcats.
“I am extremely honored to receive this incredible award,” says Maye. “Carolina has meant so much to me and provided me so many great opportunities. I did my best each day, each class, each practice and in each game to give all I had to represent the university and Tar Heel basketball the way they should be viewed, which is the best.”
The Huntersville, N.C., native played in 59 ACC wins, which equaled the most by any Tar Heel, and Carolina won 121 games over his four-year career. He scored 1,392 points, had the 10th-most rebounds (942) in school history and made 104 three-pointers. He is the only Tar Heel with 1,300 points, 900 boards and 100 threes. He scored 30 or more points five times and had five 30-point/10-rebound games, a figure exceeded only by Lennie Rosenbluth and Billy Cunningham in UNC history. He grabbed 373 rebounds as a junior and 377 as a senior; the 750 rebounds are the most in back-to-back seasons by a Tar Heel.
He earned first-team All-ACC and third-team All-America honors as a junior and was second-team all-conference in 2019. He won ACC Player of the Week honors five times – only Antawn Jamison, Tyler Hansbrough and Phil Ford won that award as a Tar Heel more.
A graduate of the Kenan-Flagler Business School, he was a four-time Academic All-ACC honoree, and won Academic All-America honors and was the ACC’s top scholar-athlete in men’s basketball in both 2018 and 2019. Maye won the Senior CLASS Award and was a finalist for the James A. Sullivan Award as the nation as the top amateur athlete in the country in 2019.
“Coaches want to see players get the most out of their abilities and maximize the experience they have as part of your program, and that is exactly what Luke Maye did in his four years as a Tar Heel,” says head coach Roy Williams. “Luke progressed from a young man who originally was going to pay his own way as a freshman to a key player on a national championship team and an All-America as a result of his own dreams and goals, his skills as a shooter and rebounder and an incredible work ethic. The deeply positive impacts he had on our program – as an outstanding player, two-time Academic All-America and ambassador for this University – will resonate for years to come.
Maye is the sixth Tar Heel to play for Williams to earn the Patterson Medal, joining Tyler Hansbrough (2009), Tyler Zeller (2012), Marcus Paige (2016), Justin Jackson (2017) and Joel Berry II (2018).
Carolina Athletics and the Patterson family will present the medals at ceremonies during the upcoming school year.
