PICTURED ABOVE: Thunder tight end J.J. Clark was a First Team Academic All-District pick at tight end.
COMPLETE LISTING OF CAPITAL ONE ACADEMIC ALL-DISTRICT TEAMS
Wheaton, Ill. – Wheaton College seniors
JJ Clark,
Scott Roche and
Teddy Watkins have been selected to the Capital One Academic All-District Seven Football Team for Division III. This season, the trio has helped lead Wheaton to a 7-2 overall record, as Wheaton is currently ranked 19th in the D3football.com Top-25 poll.
Wheaton's three Academic All-District selections is tied for the most in District Seven this fall, along with University of Mount Union and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. As First Team selections, Clark, Roche and Watkins have advanced to the Division III Academic All-America ballot for football. The Academic All-America Team will be announced on December 6.
J.J. Clark earns a First Team Academic All-District selection at tight end. He is a History major at Wheaton with a 3.74 cumulative grade point average. Clark has caught 15 passes this year and has 155 receivng yards on the season, with an average of 10.3 yards per catch.
Scott Roche (PICTURED RIGHT) , a first team honoree at kicker, is a Business/Econ. and Geology double-major at Wheaton with a 3.48 cumulative grade point average. He has made 13 of his 16 field goal attempts this season, including a long kick of 49 yards at UW-Platteville. Roche has 40 career field goals and is tied for 12th all-time in Division III history. He is one of only 17 kickers in the history of Division III to have 40 or more field goals.
Teddty Watkins (PICTURED LEFT), a first team honoree at wide receiver, is a Philosophy major at Wheaton with a 3.56 cumulative grade point average. Watkins leads the Thunder with 629 receiving yards, on 54 catches and five touchdowns. The senior leads the CCIW in receptions per game with an average of six. He also has returned 23 kickoffs for 634 yards this season, averaging a league best 25.6 yards per return that is ranked 14th in Division III. He is the CCIW leader in all-purpose yardage with a total of 164.1 yards per game that is ranked 14th in Division III.
The Academic All-District Team is a part of the Capital One Academic All-America program that honors student-athletes annually who have succeeded at the highest level in athletics and in the classroom. Members of the eight First Team Academic All-District squads in each Division advance to the national ballot, where they have the opportunity to be selected for the ESPN Academic All-America Team. Individuals are selected through voting by CoSIDA; a 2,000-plus member organization consisted of sports public relations professionals for colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
Through the years,
44 Wheaton student-athletes have earned a total of 57 Academic All-American selections through the prestigious program. Since 2000 there have been 32 Academic All-American selections from Wheaton.
To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative G.P.A. of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standing at his/her current institution. Since the program's inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Division I, II, III, NAIA and junior colleges covering all NCAA championship sports.
