Scot Rewind: A Look at Wooster's CoSIDA Academic All-Americans®

Welcome back to the Scot Rewind, where WoosterAthletics.com is taking a look back at a big win, a monster individual performance, or a significant milestone corresponding with each week of the 2020-21 academic year. This week, we're celebrating our 51 College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-Americans®.

CoSIDA's Academic All-America® program started in 1952, and was originally for football only, but the program has evolved over the years. At the Div. III level, student-athletes from every sport the NCAA sponsors a national championship in are part of the program now.

Football's Dave Foy was the College's first Academic All-American® in 1973, and four years later, Wooster legend Blake Moore earned the first of three straight first-team Academic All-America® honors. In fact, Moore, who played six years in the NFL and has held a number of senior management level positions at financial services organizations over the last 27 years, was the sixth player ever, and the second from a Div. III institution, to be a three-time first-team Academic All-American®.

In 1980, Wooster had a pair of Academic All-Americans® for the first time ever when football's Dale Fortner and John Weisensell were both named to the team, and it marked the fourth straight year the football program had an Academic All-American®. A year later, Wooster baseball great Tim Kelly, a key member of the New York Yankees' scouting department for the last three decades, became the first non-football Academic All-American® at the College. Volleyball's Karen Light, a first-team honoree in 1984, is the College's first woman to earn Academic All-American® laurels, and teammate Nora Land was voted to the second team a year later.

Lisa Diment, a 1986 honorable mention Academic All-American®, holds the distinction of being the first basketball player – male or female – at the College to be voted to the Academic All-America® team. Wooster baseball great Matt Hiestand earned second-team honors in 1988, while field hockey and men's tennis legends Carissa Conner and Eric Hicks became the Scots' first honorees in their respective gender's at-large category in 1992.

Matt Mahaffey, the "golden boot" of Wooster's football program, became the College's first repeat Academic All-American® since Moore in 1999, and teammate Ryan Hartschuh's 2002 selection kick-started the Scots' second-strongest stretch of Academic All-America® honors. Following Hartschuh, Wooster had at least one Academic All-American® in each of the next four years, including two honors by swimming great Kayla Heising. Heising, the 50 freestyle runner-up at the 2003 NCAA Div. III Championships – where Wooster placed fifth – became Wooster's first repeat Academic All-American® on the women's side, and she's the second-most decorated swimmer in program history with 20 All-America honors. The 2006-07 academic year saw Wooster student-athletes win a co-single-year best four Academic All-America® honors. Wooster legends Rick Drushal (first-team football), Tim Presto (first-team soccer), Sheldon Steiner (second-team baseball), and Katie Wieferich (second-team cross country and track & field) were the Scots' winners that year. Wieferich, a five-time All-American, and men's basketball's Matt Schlingman joined Heising as repeat Academic All-Americans® in the early-to-mid 2000s.

After not having any Academic All-Americans® during the 2007-08 academic year, Wooster bounced back nicely with three during the 2008-09 campaign, and that marked the first of 10 straight years the Scots had at least one Academic All-American®. It was déjà vu during the 2009-10 academic year when Jay Keener (men's soccer), Chantal Koechli (women's soccer), and Ryan Story (men's lacrosse) all repeated as Academic All-Americans®. In 2010, women's soccer great Paige Piper won her first of three straight Academic All-America® honors, and a year later, cross country and track & field standout Erin Plews-Ogan claimed her first of three Academic All-America® plaques.

Wooster matched its single-year high with four Academic All-Americans® during the 2011-12 academic year, with Piper and Kelsey Peters become the first teammates from a Wooster women's team to earn the accolades in the same season. In the spring, Kelsie Herring and Plews-Ogan did likewise in the cross country and track & field contest. The Scots collected four more Academic All-America® honors a year later, with volleyball's Kelley Johnson's selection marking a first for the program in nearly 30 years, and women's lacrosse 'keeper Shawna Ferris collecting that program's initial honor.

Baseball's Jarrod Mancine kept the consecutive years' streak intact with second-team accolades in 2014, and come that fall, Wooster's football program was one of just three Div. III schools with multiple first-team Academic All-Americans®, thanks to the selection of Nick Flannery and Tyler Gerwig. Women's swimming's Morgan Hughes and men's cross country and track & field's Joe David bumped the Scots' total to a co-record-haul of four for the 2015-16 academic year. Flannery went on to repeat as a first-team Academic All-American® in 2016, and two years later, cross country and track & field alumnus Geoffrey Carney-Knisley capped his career with first-team Academic All-America® honors.

Football's Eric Kraus holds the distinction of winning the College's 50th all-time Academic All-America® honor in 2019, and baseball great Harry Witwer-Dukes is the College's most-recent selection.

Follow Wooster athletics on social media!

Fan can follow Wooster's main athletic accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Interested in becoming a Fighting Scot?

Prospective student-athletes can click here to request more information from a coach and you can view the virtual campus tour here.