California’s Missy Franklin has another honor to add to her resume following her final season as an NCAA student-athlete. The College Sports Information Directors of America, CoSIDA, recently published their 2015 Capital One Academic All-America team for the NCAA division I. Franklin has been named the Academic All-American of the Year for her accomplishments in and out of the pool.
“A four-time gold medalist at the 2012 London Olympics, Franklin is appearing on the Capital One Academic All-America® At-Large Team for the first time, maintaining a 3.58 G.P.A. as a psychology major. The Centennial, Colorado, resident was the 2015 NCAA and Pac-12 Conference Swimmer of the Year, and the recipient of the 2015 Honda Sports Award for women’s swimming and diving. Franklin earned three individual national titles at the 2015 NCAA Championships, claiming top honors in the 200 freestyle (in an Americanrecord time of 1:39.10), the 200 backstroke and the 200 individual medley, all while leading California to its fourth NCAA championship, and first since 2012.
Franklin also is the most decorated woman in the history of the FINA World Championships, collecting nine career gold medals to date. She recently earned a spot on the United States squad for the FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia, this August where she is expected to compete in the 100- and 200-meter freestyle, as well as the 100- and 200-meter backstroke.”
The 2015 Capital One Academic All-America® Division I At-Large Team features athletes from fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, water polo for both men and women; bowling, crew and field hockey for women; and volleyball and wrestling for men.
To see the full press release from CoSIDA, click here.
Below is a full list of Division II Academic All-American:
2015 Capital One Academic All-America® Division I At-Large Women’s Team, as selected by CoSIDA.
2015 Capital One Academic All-America® Division I At-Large Men’s Team, as selected by CoSIDA.
Mr F: I was thinking the same thing about Ryan Murphy, but latter thought that he may have been docked because he was only a soph and did not declare a Major. You can find a lot of polls like in football where upper class student athletes prevail over Frosh/Sophs because some pollsters may think that the younger athletes have more years in college to achieve the honors. Yes, Missy was only a sophomore in standing, too, but she was not going to be eligible in the future as she turned pro.
Confusing as to how missy is ncaa swimmer of the year, goes to cal and has a 3.5 GPA, and gets cosida award of the year, but Ryan Murphy is also ncaa swimmer of the year, has close to a 3.8 GPA from cal, but doesn’t even get first team honors. Obviously, a flawed system indeed. Not taking away from missy, but more looking at how the committee is not recognizing the athletes who need to be recognized. If that isn’t enough, Murphy was second team with all of that, where as cordes was first team with a 3.3 GPA, and had a meet far inferior (still exceptional) to that of Ryan Murphy.
Unsaid is that MF is now a college dropout . There has of course been many successful dropouts & those who completed their basic degree years later.
It can also be taken that 4 year academics as student athlete was too much . Not everybody will know the inside outs of the case or think Olympics are worth not completing this very American experience . Perhaps the academic / sporting load of the next year should have been factored in .
However it often is the case that just a few kids get all the awards going . That’s life.
Btw an interesting facet for those kids deferring commencing college this September is ,provided they are still top notch , they will be heading into a heavier academic workload for 2020 than they would have had as a freshman .
Pointless award. 3.0 with physics and advanced calculus classes is a lot more impressive than a 4.0 from phys ed major at state school. So basically they should let the head coaches nominate one swimmer each and then they can pick the cream of the crop from the nominations.
And the “hits” on Missy keep coming! HSWIMMER…. Missy is academically competing against a plethora of kids who have entered Cal with 4.0 GPA’s. Cal has to turn away thousands of “A” preps each year. Only a few Universities are as competitive student body wise, while many other schools may not have this level of strong academic student bodies. This is not to denigrate ANY school…. but it is a fact.
And Missy in her two years at Cal had to balance swimming with academics and God knows how many public appearances for awards or support for good causes. And with all that, she rarely failed to stay after each dual meet for over an hour to sign for hordes… Read more »
I by no means are minimizing Missy achievements. I think she is a fantastic role model as a student-athlete and a great ambassador for the sport of swimming. I really just don’t understand how these awards are determined, and whether it’s slightly more focused on the sport aspect than the academic aspect. The only criteria I have been able to find is that the athlete must have over a 3.3 GPA and be a sophomore or above, other than that it seems like this award is pretty subjective.
They could’ve given someone else this award, Missy’s academics are obviously not as good as her swimming is.. They are just basing this off of swimming it looks like…
Shout out to Navy’s Ellen Bradford as the other female to be named Academic All-American 1st Team!!!
Agree. She is the lowest GPA on the first team !!
How exactly are these awards decided on? I realize that it is a combination of athletics and academics, but I don’t understand how someone like Chantal Van Landeghem who has 4.0 and is a multiple all-american is only a 3rd team selection.