Information for CoSIDA members from Dick Lipe, Chair of the CoSIDA Academic All-America Committee, in preparation for the opening of the 2010-11 Academic All-America nomination program on October 1.
2010-11 ESPN Academic All-America® Master Nomination and Voting Schedule and Deadlines for all sports (PDF)
2010-11 CoSIDA Academic All-America Committee list/contact info (PDF)
CoSIDA Members,
With the 59th year of the CoSIDA ESPN Academic All-America® program fast approaching, I wanted to touch base with you regarding a few items.
1. Pay your CoSIDA Membership Dues Now: As has been mentioned in several emails sent to you by CoSIDA over the last month or so,
your 2010-11 dues must be paid by Sept. 15 without incurring a $30.00 late fee/penalty. Dues payments will be accepted after that date, but it will cost you more, and
you must be a paid CoSIDA member in order to participate in the Academic All-America® program. You can find the link to pay your dues at
http://cosida.com/news.aspx?id=2811.
2. Deadlines: The nominating and voting deadlines for the 2010-11 academic year are posted above (see PDF) and also
HERE at CoSIDA.com.
Take the time now to mark these deadlines on your calendar so you don’t miss out on a chance to nominate your student-athletes for this prestigious honor. The committee will send out reminders in advance of the nomination deadlines, but don’t rely on those.
Sometimes the emails get blocked by spam filters, or there is also the potential of overlooking them during busy stretches (I know, that’s the entire academic year).
The deadline for men’s and women’s soccer is Tuesday, Oct. 12, and the deadline for football and volleyball is a week later, Tuesday, Oct. 19.
3. Missed Deadlines: The committee has a firm policy of not allowing late nominations. They are shut off at approximately 6 pm Eastern Time on the deadline date. We don’t like denying the student-athletes the opportunity to be selected as Academic All-Americas, but when we’re handling over 12,000 nominations a year, we have no other options other than to be strict with the deadlines.
4. A New Year, A New Name: For this academic year, the program sponsor will be ESPN, not ESPN the Magazine. Please refer to the team as the ESPN Academic All-America® team, as selected by CoSIDA. And while on the subject of names,
the All-District selections should be referred to as the ESPN Academic All-District team, not the ESPN Academic All-America District 1 team. Doing this avoids considerable confusion.
5. Hall of Fame Nominations: Nominations for the Academic All-America® Hall of Fame are now open and will remain open until November 2.
Research your former Academic All-America® honorees who have been out for at least 10 years, and if they are doing something special in their professional careers or in community service areas, take the time to nominate them. There are a lot of outstanding people out there who deserve to be considered for the very prestigious Academic All-America® Hall of Fame. If you don’t know who from your institution was an Academic All-America®, the all-time database is posted in the Academic All-America® section of www.CoSIDA.com found
HERE.
On the same note,
if you have outstanding alumni who competed before the Academic All-America® program existed in their sport (football before 1952, men’s basketball before 1963, baseball before 1970, women’s basketball before 1980, volleyball before 1982, and all other sports before 1983), consider nominating them in the honorary category if they meet the other criteria for the Academic All-America® Hall of Fame.
6. Improper Use of Academic All-America®: Please keep in mind that Academic All-America® is a registered trademark of CoSIDA and should only be used in relationship to our CoSIDA program. Many times over the course of the year we find that our own membership is using “Academic All-America®” in releases that they prepare with regard to student-athletes receiving awards for academic achievement from other organizations when in fact those organizations refer to their awards as “All-Academic”, “Scholar- Athlete”, “Academic All-Star”, etc. We ask that our own membership be cognizant of ONLY using “Academic All-America®” in relation to CoSIDA’s program. It should not be used with any other program. There are no exceptions.
7. When nominating for 2010-11, NO P.O. Box mailing addresses will be accepted on the nomination form. Please make sure to include your department's correct and full SHIPPING address on the nomination form. This will ensure accuracy and timeliness with shipping , and will decrease extra costs when shipments have to be re-routed.
8. When you have a First Team All-District selection- please update the information! As you know, first team All-District selections advance to the national Academic All-America® ballot. If you have a student-athlete who is selected to the All-District first team, you have a responsibility to update their statistical/academic information through the online system within the next few days. A reminder is sent to the honorees’ SIDs when the All-District teams are determined,
but please remember to update the information for accuracy as the candidate heads to the national ballot. Failure to do so can hurt your honoree’s chances of Academic All-America® selection.
9. Questions? If you have any questions about what awards are distributed in regards to the Academic All-America® program, or who votes at each level of the program, a full rundown is located at
http://www.cosida.com/Awards/allamerica.aspx . All current dues-paying CoSIDA members can vote on the district ballots and are strongly urged to do so.
Have a great year, and thanks for your continuing support of the Academic All-America® program.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me (
rlipe@bentley.edu, phone: 781-893-6329) or any of the members of the committee. That committe list and contact information can be found atop the page.
Sincerely,
Dick Lipe
Chair, CoSIDA Academic All-America® Committee