Wheaton, Ill. – Giovanni Weeks and Trevor Gabriele of the Thunder football team have been selected to 2023 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-America Division III Football Team. Weeks is a First Team Academic All-American this year and Gabriele is a Second Team honoree. Wheaton's two selections this season marks the fifth time in team history that the program has had multiple selections in the same year. In 2021, Wheaton set a school record with four selections, and in 2022, 2011 and 1976 Wheaton had two Academic All-Americans.

A December 2023 graduate of Wheaton, Weeks (PICTURED LEFT) earned his degree in Business and Economics. He is now a three-time Academic All-American, with First Team honors in 2021 and 2023 and Second Team recognition in 2022. A unanimous First Team All-American this season, Weeks was a First Team honoree this year from the AFCA, Associated Press and D3football.com. He registered a school record 1,687 yards this season, a mark that is among the highest rushing totals in Division III in the 2023 season. Weeks broke his own school single-season records with 25 total touchdowns and 152 points. The senior ran for a career-high 256 yards in Wheaton's NCAA First Round win against Mount St. Joseph, the highest single-game rushing total in the playoffs this year and the 11th-highest single-game total in D3 this season. Weeks owns a school record with an average of 12.4 points per game in his career to rank 11th all-time in Division III history. His school record of 422 career points is 25th all-time in D3 history, and he holds the Wheaton school record with 70 career touchdowns. Weeks is Wheaton's career rushing yardage leader with 4,397 career rushing yards and his 5,540 career all-purpose yards is also a school record.

As a three-time selection, Weeks is the second member of the Wheaton football program to be a three-time Academic All-American, joining fellow running back Pedro Arruza (1993, 1994 & 1995). Furthermore Weeks is just the ninth Wheaton student-athlete out of Wheaton's 116 Academic All-America selections to be a three-time honoree, joining: Arruza; Emily Mason - At-Large/Women's Swimming (2001, 2002 & 2003); Justin Risma - Men's Soccer (2003, 2004 & 2005); Stephen Golz - Men's Soccer (2013, 2014 & 2015); Kirsten Nitz - At-Large/Women's Swimming (2014, 2015 & 2016); Kyle Mellinger - Baseball (2014, 2015 & 2016); Leif Van Grinsven - Men's Track & Field (2017, 2018 & 2019); and Favor Ezewuzie Women's Track & Field (2019, 2020 & 2021).   

Gabriele (PICTURED RIGHT), a three-year starter on the Thunder offensive line, graduated from Wheaton in December with a bachelor's degree in Elementary Education. Gabriele was honored as a Third Team All-America selection by D3football.com at center at the conclusion of the 2023 season, following Fourth Team honors in 2022 at guard. This season, Gabriele led an impressive Thunder offensive line that helped Wheaton rank 10th in Division III in total offense with a school record of 501.0 yards per game. Behind his impressive play, the Thunder offense amassed 6,012 yards of total offense this season for a new school record, surpassing the previous record of 5,926 yards set in 2003.

Through the years, Wheaton student-athletes have earned a total of 117 Academic All-American selections through the prestigious program. Since 2000, there have been 92 Academic All-American selections from Wheaton, and Thunder Athletics has produced at least one CSC Academic All-American for 25-consecutive years.

There have been 28 Wheaton College football Academic All-America selections among 21 players since the program began: Bill Hyer (1973); Eugene Campbell (1975 & 1976); Craig Carter (1976); Paul Sternenberg (1988), Bart Moseman (1992); Pedro Arruza (1993, 1994 & 1995); Jeff Brown (1995); Chip Parrish (1996); Dane Lundgren (2002); James Hoxworth (2003); Andrew Day (2005); J.J. Clark (2011); Scott Roche (2011), Eric Stevenson (2017 & 2018) and Corey Kennedy (2018 & 2019); Luke Anthony (2021); Caleb Egbert (2021); Ryan Schwartz (2021); Sam Bell (2022); Weeks (2021, 2022 & 2023) and Gabriele (2023).

The CSC Academic All-America® program 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 Academic All-America Team. Individuals are selected through voting by CSC; a 2,000-plus member organization consisted of sports public relations professionals for colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.

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, CSC (formerly known as 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.