June 6, 2013
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Penn State Nittany Lion wrestler Matt Brown (West Valley City, Utah) has added yet another prestigious accolade to his 2013 ledger by being named a First Team Capital One Academic All-American, earning the nod on the Division I At-Large team.
The honor is Brown's second first team Academic All-America laurel of the year (he was a first team NWCA All-Academic selection as well). The Capital One Academic All-America at-large team, however, includes all potential athletes from a whopping 12 teams on the men's side (wrestling, fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, water polo and volleyball). To be eligible for Academic All-America® consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00 and have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution.
Impressively, 20 percent of all first team members were wrestlers (three of the 15 chosen). Brown is Penn State's eighth Academic All-American in the at-large pool since 1999 when Glenn Pritzlaff was a second team selection.
Brown is the 2013 National Runner-Up at 174 and an All-American, 2013 Big Ten Champion and a first team Big Ten selection, and ended the year with a 29-5 record after a 4-1 NCAA tournament run. He was also named the NCAA Elite 89 Award as the nation's top Division I wrestling student-athlete with the top GPA of all 330 championship competitors. Brown is criminology major with a 3.97 GPA and was an Academic All-Big Ten selection as well. He recently earned CoSIDA Capital One Academic All-District laurels as well as his first team NWCA All-Academic nod. Brown heads into his sophomore year with a 56-7 career record.
The Nittany Lion wrestler was one of three Penn State athletes honored. Field hockey standout Kelsey Amy (Sweet Valley, Pa.) earned second-team recognition, while women's lacrosse midfielder Tatum Coffey (Toms River, N.J.) garnered third-team accolades.
Amy was named a first-team NFHCA All-American for the second consecutive year and earned her fourth nod to the NFHCA National Academic Squad. The Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year, Amy was named to the All-Mideast Region First Team for the fourth straight year and earned first-team All-Big Ten for the third time in her career. Coffey helped lead the seventh-ranked women's lacrosse team to its second straight NCAA quarterfinal appearance and the program's most wins (14) since the 1999 season. The Toms River, N.J., native finished the 2013 campaign ranked third on the team in assists (11), fourth in points (39), draw controls (33) and ground balls (26) and tied for fourth in caused turnovers (17).
Brown's honor is the latest in a long string of post-season academic laurels being piled up by Penn State wrestling. The Lions had 15 members named first team Academic All-Big Ten (nearly half its roster), now has five first team All-Americans among four wrestlers with Brown's two nods and fellow NWCA All-Academic honorees Nico Megaludis, David Taylor and Quentin Wright. Wright was also honored by winning an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.
With the addition of the three at-large selections, Penn State boasts 181 all-time Academic All-America® honorees, the third highest total among NCAA Division I institutions. In 2012-13, six Nittany Lion student-athletes earned Capital One Academic All-America® honors as the three at-large selections joined Julian Cardona (men's soccer) and football's first-team members Pete Massaro and John Urschel.
During the 2012-13 academic year, the Nittany Lions posted another successful year in the classroom as a school-record 296 student-athletes earned Academic All-Big Ten accolades. In addition, eight Penn State squads were recently awarded NCAA Public Recognition Awards for earning high marks in the most recent Academic Progress Rate (APR) compilation. The eight honored teams are Penn State's second-highest total in the eight years of the NCAA Public Recognition Award, trailing only the nine honored squads from 2009-10.
Penn State is on a run of three straight NCAA titles and three straight Big Ten Championships. Fans are encouraged to follow Penn State wrestling via twitter at www.twitter.com/pennstateWREST and on Penn State Wrestling's facebook page at www.facebook.com/pennstatewrestling. The 2012-13 Penn State Wrestling season was presented by The Family Clothesline.