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This story is part of our CSC 360 package for August 2023, to view more stories, click here.
CSC Academic All-America® program update
by Mitch Blankespoor — Wilmington College, Director of Athletic Communications // Academic All-America Core Committee Chair
I cannot believe August is here already, and that means the 2023-24 academic year and the 72nd year of the Academic All-America program is right around the corner! 2022-23 was a year of transition for the program, and the committee is grateful to the membership for working through changes — some for the better, and others not so much — last year. The 2023-24 academic year is very likely to have more change, and I wanted to highlight what the committee has been up to over the last few months.
First, we’ve established a working group that is analyzing all aspects of the program. We’ve met three times over the summer and have had productive discussion on maintaining the program’s excellence and ensuring the selection and promotion of the very best student-athletes in the country. The goal is to bring recommendations to the CSC Executive Board to react to. Some changes may be implemented in 2023-24 while others will be introduced in subsequent years.
This brings me to my second point — surveying the membership. One of the CSC Executive Board’s mandates was to develop a survey to solicit member feedback, which was sent out in mid-July and will close on Friday, August 4, at 11:59 p.m. Feedback and comments on the survey will guide changes to the program over the next several years, so please fill it out!
Click here to access the survey.
The other mandate from the CSC Executive Board was to make the national ballot more manageable. Thank you to everyone who slogged through the voting process this past year. We have heard the sentiments of the membership on the size of the national ballot, and any recommended changes to the program bear this in mind.
In honor of transparency, I want to share a couple of items the working group has strong agreement on. The early returns from the survey have supported these opinions as well.
- First, nominations for contests need to be pushed back. Depending on institutional affiliation, nominees have occurred during the middle of regular seasons, resulting in voters using incomplete information during balloting. A recommendation for the timing of contests will need to take into consideration committee work, but a possible window of nominations opening being discussed is the end of the NCAA Division I season in each sport.
- Second, the athletic eligibility criteria must both be elevated and more quantifiable for both Academic All-District selection and Academic All-America consideration. The designation of “key reserve” is too subjective and can vary greatly based on the nominator’s opinion. This is a prestigious program, and the objective criteria, specifically for Academic All-America, will be steep.
- Third, the requirement for 12 months of residency for nomination has lost much of its rationale. It used to mostly align with the transfer rules of intercollegiate collegiate athletics, but with the changes in transfer rules, that alignment is gone. CSC leadership has expressed an interest in not penalizing student-athletes who transfer as undergraduates and have strong credentials that would otherwise make them eligible.
Once the survey is complete, our working group will review the data and send our recommendations on changes to the CSC Executive Board. Once those changes have been approved, it is my hope to get a master calendar out for the 2023-24 academic year by the end of September.
Feel free to shoot me an email (
mitch_blankespoor@wilmington.edu) with any questions, comments or concerns. Again, a sincere thank you all of the CSC members for nominating, voting, promoting and caring so deeply about the Academic All-America program!
Highlights from 2022-23
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