Sept. 3, 2015
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Penn State men's soccer redshirt-senior Kyle MacDonald (Yardley, Pa.) was named a 2015 Senior CLASS Award nominee Thursday, Sept. 3. MacDonald is one-of-30 men's soccer nominees for the prestigious award.
To be eligible for the award, a student-athlete must be classified as an NCAA Division I senior and have notable achievements in four areas of excellence: community, classroom, character and competition.
An acronym for Celebrating Loyalty and Achievement for Staying in School®, the Senior CLASS Award focuses on the total student-athlete and encourages students to use their platform in athletics to make a positive impact as leaders in their communities.
After redshirting in the 2011 campaign, MacDonald has made 48 appearances for the Nittany Lions and started 18 matches. The Yardley, Pa. native has posted two career goals, both of which came at the Mack Brady Game where the Penn State community honors Mack Brady. Brady passed away Dec. 21, 2012 to an unexpected blood infection at the age of eight. Brady's father, Christian, is the Dean of the Schreyer's Honor College, which MacDonald has been enrolled in since he started school at Penn State.
MacDonald is carrying a 3.76 grade point average in an integrated undergraduate-graduate program for architectural engineering and was accepted into the BIM Interdisciplinary Studio with an option in structural engineering. The redshirt-senior midfielder is also a member of the Penn State Structural Engineering Association as well as the Penn State Student-Athlete Advisory Board and the Penn State Blue and White Society. As a member of these groups, MacDonald attends regular meetings, representing himself as well as the Penn State men's soccer team.
MacDonald also had the opportunity to travel to Rome, Italy to study at the Student Abroad Pantheon Institute for seven weeks where he was a member of the architectural studies program.
For his work in the classroom, MacDonald is a two-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree and a 2014 CoSIDA Academic All-District honoree. The Yardley, Pa. native also earned the AP Scholar with Distinction Award in 2011 and was a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar in 2012.
Along with his work at Penn State, MacDonald has volunteered as a camp counselor at Penn State Soccer Summer Camps and is a member of Spiritus Leoninus, which is the student-athlete honor society. He has also helped with the Special Olympic 5K and is an YMS Summer Soccer Camp Counselor.
The candidate pool will be narrowed to 10 finalists midway through the regular season, and those 10 names will be placed on the official ballot. Ballots will be distributed through a nationwide voting system to media, coaches and fans, who will select one male candidate who best exemplifies excellence in the four Cs of community, classroom, character and competition.
The Senior CLASS Award winners will be announced during the 2015 NCAA Men's College Cup® championships in December.
For more information on all the candidates, visit seniorCLASSaward.com.