This is the third "CoSIDA Corner" from Doherty which appears in NACDA's Athletics Administration Magazine's December issue. Each issue is sent to over 10,000 university and athletics administrators, with CoSIDA's voice, thoughts and expertise being shared with these key constituents. Athletics Administration is published each October, November, December, February, March, April, June and August.
This month, Doherty talks about CoSIDA's talks about CoSIDA's signature program - the Academic All-America® program.
Read the most recent "CoSIDA Corner" HERE
There is, of course, no shortage of awards and honors in college athletics. The Heisman Trophy, John Wooden Award and Hobey Baker Award signify greatness on the field of play. There are community service awards like the AFCA’s “Good Works” team. The NCAA has a whole set of prestigious honors like the Silver Anniversary Award and the Theodore Roosevelt Award.
Few honors in college athletics, however, have a longer history than the College Sports Information Directors of America’s Academic All-America® program. Founded in 1952 to honor deserving student-athletes who excel on the field of competition and in the classroom, CoSIDA’s Academic All-America® program has honored close to 20,000 student-athletes who have earned the right to be called an Academic All-American. In addition, just 108 of the more than 272,000 nominees over the years have earned induction into the highly exclusive Academic All-America® Hall of Fame.
Annually CoSIDA’s signature initiative, the Academic All-America® program was awarded a federal registration mark from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1986. The mark was re-issued in 2006. There is a federal registration mark associated with the Academic All-America® Hall of Fame as well.
The program, administered and coordinated by CoSIDA’s Academic All-America Committee, consists of eight districts across the U.S. and Canada. Student-athletes who are regular contributors to their teams and have no less than a 3.3 grade-point average are eligible for nomination (they also must have completed at least one full calendar year at their institution and reached sophomore athletics eligibility).
Academic All-District teams are selected first and those student-athletes are then forwarded to a national ballot from which the Academic All-America® teams are chosen. An Academic All-American of the Year is selected for each sport in both the College Division and University Division. Finally, an overall Academic All-American of the Year is picked in both the College and University Divisions. All of the nominating and voting is done by CoSIDA members.
In 1985, GTE became the exclusive sponsor of the Academic All-America program and remained so until 2000 when the company merged with Verizon. Verizon was the program’s sponsor for three years before ESPN The Magazine took over as CoSIDA’s sponsor/corporate partner in 2004.
The Academic All-America® program is a tremendous publicity vehicle for colleges and universities of all sizes in the United States.
Every athletics program is loaded with great athletes and great students and CoSIDA’s program strives to honor those who achieve that balanced excellence.
As I mentioned earlier, the most exclusive element of the Academic All-America® program is its Hall of Fame. Created in 1988, the Academic All-America Hall of Fame has inducted just 108 individuals and they are some of the most highly accomplished people in the history of
college athletics.
Hundreds of former Academic All-Americans are nominated for the Hall of Fame by their alma maters each year, but only 25 are selected as finalists and only four or five are chosen for induction each year. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony has been held from coast to coast over the years, but it is currently part of the annual CoSIDA Convention each summer.
The list of Academic All-America Hall of Famers reads like a “who’s who” of college athletics: Bill Bradley, John Wooden, Joe Girardi, Rebecca Lobo, Anne Donovan, Steve Young, Merlin Olson, Tracey Caulkins and on and on.
To date, the list of Hall of Famers includes two Nobel Prize recipients, several Olympic medalists, an astronaut, three judges, 19 physicians and a number of representatives from Congress and other governmental positions. There are members of the basketball, college football, hockey and women’s basketball halls of fame.
The Hall of Fame induction also annually includes the presentation of “The Enberg Award,” which is presented to a person who has provided superb leadership in promoting the joint values of education and athletics. The award honors legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg, who has served as the spokesperson for the Academic All-America® program since 1985 and has had a passionate involvement in all aspects of the program.
Among the winners of The Enberg Award are coaching legends like Dean Smith of North Carolina, Tom Osborne of Nebraska and Pat Summit of Tennessee; the late former President Gerald R. Ford, Boston Celtics great Bill Russell, NFL Hall of Famer Alan Page and former Notre Dame president Father Theodore Hesburgh. All were honored for their commitment to promoting the joint values of education and athletics, the core mission of the Academic All-America® program.
CoSIDA members are involved on a daily basis with a myriad of projects and initiatives on their respective campuses. Survey any CoSIDA member, however, and they will tell you that promotion and recognition of combined academic and athletics achievement - the Academic All-America® program - ranks right at the top of their “to do” lists.
The program has become an organizational passion due to our desire to promote and advance all that is good in college athletics. The essence of what we do as professionals on behalf of our institutions and college athletics in general is to strategically promote its many positives and this is clearly one such project that has done just that. The student-athletes, institutions and college athletics at large have benefited greatly.
The Academic All-America® program is perhaps CoSIDA’s greatest organizational gift to the overall intercollegiate athletics community.