LYNN — Ask any of Lynn Vocational Technical Institute senior Awan Awan’s coaches, and one of the first things they’ll mention is his work ethic.

Throughout high school, Awan gave 100% in everything he did, from the classroom to the basketball court and track. That dedication earned him admission to Cornell University, where he will begin studying this fall.

“Coach [Corey] Bingham always said, ‘You’re a student-athlete, and student comes first,’” Awan said. “For me, that’s where I thrive. School is like working out and competing. If you keep practicing, you keep studying, you get better results. When you get better results, you get better opportunities. Everything started in the classroom, then I applied how I study to sports. Anything I do, I do it with 100%.”

Awan played basketball all four years and joined the track team as a junior to stay in shape. He ended up rewriting the school’s record book in the 400 meters.

He ran a 52.6-second race as a junior to break the school record, then lowered it to 52.4 seconds this spring.

“When I first broke the record, I was just competing with one of the seniors and another kid in my class who had been running for a while. I was just trying to beat them. That competitiveness paid off,” Awan said. “When I showed up to practice at Manning, I made sure I gave 100% effort all the time. If I’m showing up somewhere, it’s time to go all in. Coming into my senior year, I wanted to outdo myself. It’s you against you. If you don’t put the pain in and the work in, you normally won’t achieve anything.”

This fall, Awan will attend Cornell.

“When I started my college application process, I applied to about 15 schools. It was always going to be Cornell or Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I’ve been doing internships at MIT for the past three summers,” Awan said. “I wanted a school with a large campus and a strong engineering program. At Lynn Tech, I’m in the electrical trade, and I want to combine that with STEM, so electrical engineering makes the most sense.”

It was fitting that Awan capped his senior year by becoming the inaugural recipient of the Paul K. Halloran Jr. Scholarship. 

Halloran, who has a role in selecting the scholarship recipient, said he was pleased Awan became its first winner.

“I was very pleased to have Awan be the first recipient. He is an extremely impressive young man who represents the very best of Lynn,” Halloran said.

Awan called becoming the scholarship’s first recipient “a special feeling.”

“It feels like you’re being seen for all the hard work you put in when you were in the gym by yourself, running those laps when you wanted to stop, then going home and studying,” Awan said. “I was so happy because it was nice that my hard work was being acknowledged. I was also the first to receive this award, so it’s nice to be the first one to get this honor and kind of pave the way for the next winner.”