Candace Wu

In February, Candace Wu was handed the CIF State Scholar-Athlete application by her tennis coach.

Wu, a senior at Valencia, filled out the form and sent it off with recommendation letters from her counselor and the school's athletic director.

On Tuesday, Wu found out she was this year’s recipient of the award, which is handed out to one male and female athlete in the state. Wu will receive her award in front of the state senate on June 11. She also gets a $5,000 scholarship.

“I’m definitely really excited,” she said. “I’m shocked. I’m speechless. It’s a great honor to be recognized.”

When Wu arrived home after school Tuesday, she listened to two messages on the family’s answering machine. One was from a representative from CIF delivering the news. The other was from Valencia principal Jim Bell congratulating her on the award.

Wu is the first county state scholar athlete recipient since Capistrano Valley’s Meridith McCall won the award in 2003. Wu is just the third county female prep athlete to receive the honor since 1982. Los Alamitos’ Shay Murphy was named the state scholar athlete in 2002.

“It’s a great honor for her,” Bell said. “By school standards, no one at the three high schools in our district has ever won the award. She played an integral role on three CIF championship teams. She’s a National Merit Finalist. She was one of 170 students accepted to Cal Tech, but she decided to attend Johns Hopkins.”

Wu said the college choice wasn’t easy. In the end she felt Johns Hopkins was a better school to study bio-medical engineering. Wu has a 10-12 grade academic GPA of 4.86. She scored a 2330 on her SAT.

She also finished second in the state at this year’s Chemistry Olympiad, and ended up in third place in the Science Olympiad.
After finding out about winning the award, Wu called her parents, Hua and Lin, to tell them the news.

“They were really excited,” Wu said. “I called Mr. Bell back too. He was really excited. I also called a couple close friends.”

Wu wasn’t expecting much as she filled out her application. She thought about her three CIF titles as part of the girls tennis team and would it be enough.

She also won the Empire League doubles’ championship with partner Natalie McKay. The pair advanced to the CIF-SS individual tournament’s quarterfinals. Wu’s older brother, Curtis, is a junior on the boys tennis team.

“I think without Candace we probably wouldn’t have won any,” Tigers coach Mike McCall said. “She is just a rock. She’s so good in the classroom, I think people underestimate her as a tennis players. She’s outstanding at tennis.
“She’s been the scholar athlete at our school I think for four years in a row. To win it at state is on another level.”

O.C.’s past CIF State Scholar-Athlete award winners (since 1982):
2003: Meridith McCall (Capistrano Valley)
2002: Shay Murphy (Los Alamitos)
1998: Jeffrey Hick (Laguna Hills)
1992: Terry Mann (Sunny Hills)
1986: Todd Gregory French (Canyon)