May 7, 2009
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Paul Cianciolo, a graduate student on the Penn State baseball team, was named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District II First Team, College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced on Thursday. The relief pitcher will move to the national ballot for Academic All-American consideration.
This marks the second consecutive year and the third time in four years that the Nittany Lions have placed a player on the Academic All-District squad. It is the 10th time this decade Penn State has sported a student-athlete on the listing. To become eligible for nomination, a student-athlete must obtain a 3.30 grade-point average in both undergraduate and graduate coursework and perform exemplary work on the diamond.
Cianciolo, a native of Charleston, S.C., has become one of Penn State's most revered student-athletes in recent memory. He owns a GPA of 3.94 and has attained honors during every semester as an undergraduate in marketing at the Smeal College of Business. After graduating in three years, Cianciolo moved onto obtaining his Master's of Business Administration (M.B.A.) with a primary concentration in corporate finance and earned a GPA of 3.8 in his post-graduate studies. He is also two-sport athlete who also served as a quarterback on the 2008 Big Ten champion Penn State football team.
This month, he will become the first player in Penn State baseball history and the first student-athlete in the 59-year coaching tenure of Joe Paterno to obtain his M.B.A. within the five years of NCAA athletic eligibility.
In his first complete season on the Penn State baseball team, Cianciolo holds a 4-1 record and a 4.62 ERA for Robbie Wine's squad. He has given up just 13 walks in 50 2/3 innings - an average of 2.1 per nine frames pitched - and has been instrumental as a long reliever in the Nittany Lion bullpen. During a two-week stretch during Big Ten play, Cianciolo tossed over 20 innings of work with a 1.73 ERA with a key victory against Michigan with five innings of work.
He held the lowest ERA among long relievers during his first season with the Nittany Lions last year.
Following graduation, Cianciolo intends on entering Wall Street in investment banking. Last summer, he served as an investment banking analyst for Allen & Company, LLC in New York City, where he Conducted market analysis and comparables valuation for Major League Baseball.
CoSIDA's District II is comprised of Division I universities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia, Delaware and the District of Columbia.