Michigan Men, SEC Women Top Individual Scholar All-American Lists

The men of the University of Michigan have completed another successful season of college swimming. They won the Big Ten title, finished 5th at NCAA’s, and now have received more individual Scholar All-American honors than any other program in the country, with 9. That means the 75% of their NCAA roster held a GPA of 3.5 or better, and at Michigan, that is consistently ranked among the best public universities in the country, and world for that matter.

The names on the list include some of the team’s stars, like 14-time Big Ten champ Dan Madwed, and the Ortiz brothers Miguel and Bruno.

There are a lot of big-name swimmers on this list from across the country, including dozens of major conference champions. Here’s the teaching-tool from this year’s list: the two members of the Olympic Team who still have college eligibility remaining were both Academic All-Americans: Michigan’s Connor Jaeger and Georgia’s Andrew Gemmell. That can be a big learning point for coaches across the country that it is possible to balance the most elite athletics with high-level academic performance.

On the women’s side, the SEC continued to prove their academic prowess, as the ladies of Georgia and Auburn tied atop the list with 8 swimmers on the list. Included in those numbers are NCAA Champions and Olympians like Arianna Vanderpool-Wallace, Wendy Trott, and Shannon Vreeland.

These awards are decided by athletes who have a cumulative (or semester) GPA of 3.5 or better and have qualified for their respective NCAA Championship meet. Honorable mention awards go to swimmers and divers with the same GPA, who have achieved an NCAA “B” standard, but have not qualified for the National Championship meet.

Full lists, including Division II, Division III, NAIA, and JuCo swimmers, available here.

Other individual NCAA Division I Champions to make this list include:

• Liv Jensen (Cal)
• Cindy Tran (Cal)
• Elizabeth Beisel (Florida)
• Austen Thompsen (Arizona)