Joe David

2014-15 Academic All-America Team

The College of Wooster's Joe David was selected to the Capital One Academic All-America Team® for NCAA Div. III men's cross country/track & field, receiving third-team honors, it was announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on Tuesday.

David is Wooster's fourth Academic All-American® of the 2014-15 academic year, joining women's swimmer Morgan Hughes and football players Nick Flannery and Tyler Gerwig, and this marks the fourth time in five years that a member of the Fighting Scots' track & field program has earned the prestigious recognition.

For David, it is the culmination of an unlikely collegiate athletic career. After playing soccer as a freshman, he decided to take up competitive distance running for the first time and steadily developed into one of the best in the North Coast Athletic Conference.

"Wow, what a great and deserving honor. That's awesome," said Wooster head coach Dennis Rice. "What he accomplished running-wise is one of the most amazing things in the 30-plus years I've been here. I never would have guessed when he first came out, he would be all-conference in cross country and a conference scorer in track."

"(The) thing about Joe is he is such a dedicated hard-worker, both in the classroom and with running. That's how he achieved success," Rice continued. "He came into our program and stuck with the system. The system is based on hard work, and during the process of that there's going to be a lot of challenges and adversity. He was able to overcome those, and in fact they drove him harder to become an all-conference performer."

David served as Wooster's lead cross country runner for most of his senior season, highlighted by a 12th-place finish at the highly-competitive NCAC Championships, covering that particular 8K course in 27:01.6. On the track, he ran the 5000 meters indoors, all leading up to the 10,000 meters at the conference's outdoor meet where he crossed the line in sixth (32:52.21).

Academically, David graduated magna cum laude as he accumulated a 3.84 GPA as a biochemistry and molecular biology major. He was the recipient of one of Wooster's most distinguished honors, the William A. Galpin Award, given to just two men for general excellence in college work.

Also, David was Wooster's male recipient of the 2014-15 NCAC Scholar-Athlete award, and he is already working as a pathology research technician at New York University and plans to go to medical school in the future.