For more than 50 years, the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) have been selecting Academic All-America Teams, but there has never been a two-time first team Academic All-American® from Hobart or William Smith colleges, until today.
Senior offensive lineman
Brian Monaco earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® Football first team honors for the second consecutive season. The biology major is a three-time ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District and Liberty League All-Academic selection.
“Brian brings the same high level of dedication, motivation, and leadership to the classroom as he does to the football field,” said
James Ryan, professor of biology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. “He is a natural leader, intellectually curious, and a true scholar-athlete.”
In the classroom, Monaco is a Dean’s List student, a Druid (Hobart’s senior class honor society), and a member of the Chimera (junior class) and Orange Key (sophomore class) honor societies. Earlier this season, the National Football Foundation named him one of the 154 semifinalists for the 2009 William V. Campbell Trophy, which recognizes exceptional academic accomplishment, outstanding football ability, and strong leadership and citizenship.
The first Hobart football player to be named a first team Academic All-American (2008), Monaco earned the Gordon L. Richardson ’33 Memorial Prize, given to a Hobart pre-med student in his junior year with strong academic credentials and concern for humankind. He is a Presidential Leadership Scholar and earned the 2007 Druid Award for Character.
Active in the campus community, Monaco is a biology teaching fellow and a member of the Health Professions Club. He has volunteered at Sisters of Charity Hospital Surgery Center and with the Geneva Boxing Club. Monaco has also served as a member of Hobart’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
On the field, Monaco is a 6-foot-2, 290-pound tackle. One of two captains for this year’s squad, he is a three-year starter and a three-time All-Liberty League selection. This season, Monaco was a leader on the line that helped the Statesmen lead the Liberty League in third down conversion (44.9%), rank second in sacks allowed (16) and fourth down conversion (56%), and third in rushing (159.0 yds/g).
Monaco and the Statesmen won the 2006, 2007, and 2008 Liberty League Championships, earning NCAA Playoff bids in each of those seasons. During his career, Hobart posted a 31-10 (.756) record. Monaco helped Hobart to a 6-3 record this year, including a season-ending four-game winning streak.
The ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America® College Division Football first team includes five Scholar-Athletes with 4.0 GPAs. There are two graduate students, 17 seniors and five juniors on the team. The 24 members of the first team have an average GPA of 3.92.
To be eligible, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director.
Since the program’s inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 14,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA, covering all NCAA championship sports.
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