May 19, 2015
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State Nittany Lion wrestler Matt Brown (West Valley City, Utah) and field hockey player Laura Gebhart (Mount Joy, Pa.) have been named to the First Team CoSIDA At-Large Academic All-District team. The Nittany Lion tandem is now on the ballot for CoSIDA At-Large Academic All-America laurels.
Brown, a criminology and international studies major, was recently honored with a prestigious NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship and was Penn State's male recipient of this year's Big Ten Post-Graduate Scholarship. He was a member of four national championship teams with the Nittany Lion wrestlers. The 2015 NCAA Champion at 174 pounds and Penn State's 24th three-time All-American, Brown posted a 29-3 record this past season. He capped off his career with a 5-0 run through the NCAA Championships to claim his first individual crown. Brown leaves Penn State with a 118-16 career record, 12th all-time in wins and 11th all-time in pins with 30. He was also recently named Penn State's McCoy Award winner. Brown is a multiple NWCA National First Team All-Academic selection, was a 2013 First Team CoSIDA Academic All-American and the 2013 Elite 89 Award Winner. He was a three-time First Team Academic All-Big Ten honoree as well.
Gebhart (Mount Joy, Pa.) was named to the first team for the second consecutive year. Already honored this year as a NFHCA Scholar of Distinction, the community and environment development major was a four-time field hockey All-American, earning first-team honor s for the first time this past season. She was also a four-time first-team All-Big Ten and first-team NFHCA All-Mideast Region selection and finished eighth on the Nittany Lions' all-time assists list. This past season, Gebhart helped lead Penn State to the NCAA quarterfinals, serving as team captain and ranking second on the team in scoring with 27 points. Additionally, she was the captain of the 2013 U.S. Junior World Cup Squad and a member of the 2013-14 U.S. Women's National Team.
These latest honors continue another banner academic year for Penn State Athletics. Penn State student-athletes, who have captured 18 Big Ten Championships and five NCAA titles since September 2012, consistently have been among the most successful in the nation in earning their degrees. Among some of the recent academic accomplishments are:
- Brown earned a prestigious NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship, Penn State's 46th such recipient.
- 101 student-athletes graduated this month, second-highest in school history, and 128 have graduated so far during this academic year.
- Penn State's 70 winter Academic All-Big Ten selections (including Brown) brought Penn State's 2014-15 total to 142 academic all-conference honorees (from 15 sports) and comes on the heels of the record-breaking fall semester academic performance.
- Penn State student-athletes shattered school records during the 2014 fall semester, including a record 500 earning a grade-point average of 3.0 or higher. Among the 500 Nittany Lion student-athletes earning at least a 3.0 GPA, a school record 241 garnered Dean's List honors during the 2014 fall semester by posting a GPA of 3.50 or higher. The combined average GPA was 3.08 among Penn State's 31 varsity sports during the fall semester.
- Seventy-two Penn State student-athletes earned Fall Academic All-Big Ten honors. During the 2013-14 academic year, Penn State had 285 academic all-conference honorees, its second-highest total all-time;
- Last October, the NCAA's annual study of institutions across the nation revealed Penn State student-athletes at the University Park campus earned a Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 89 percent compared to the 82 percent average for all Division I institutions. The 89 percent figure was second-highest, to Northwestern, among Big Ten Conference institutions.
- Penn State's 186 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans all-time ranks No. 3 among Division I institutions.