NEW YORK (AP) -Dumb jocks? Not in this crowd.
The finalists for the Draddy Trophy, the so-called academic Heisman, were announced Wednesday. These 15 student-athletes blow away the negative stereotype that often gets pinned to college football players. They excel both at being students and athletes.
Star quarterbacks Chase Daniel from Missouri and Graham Harrell from Texas Tech are the most notable finalists selected by the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame. Among the others are Ohio State receiver Brian Robiskie, Illinois offensive tackle Ryan McDonald and Georgia Tech defensive tackle Darryl Richard.
CEO Steve Hatchell said Wednesday in a telephone interview, “but there are a lot of great kids doing great things.”
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Take Richard, for example, who didn’t have time Wednesday to do a phone interview with The Associated Press because after classes and practice he was scheduled to preside over a town hall meeting with athletic director Dan Radakovich and other university leaders. Richard, who majors in management and has a 3.5 grade-point average, is the president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Board.
The 290-pounder also is a team captain and three-year starter with 9 1/2 career sacks.
“You’ve got to be a real player (to be a Draddy candidate),” Hatchell said. “You can’t just be a backup with a great grade-point average.”
The Draddy Trophy is named after Vincent dePaul Draddy, who played football for Manhattan College in the 1920s, was chairman of the board for the NFF for 19 years and brought Izod and Lacoste shirts to the United States. The trophy was first awarded in 1990, months after its namesake died.
Past winners include Peyton Manning and Chad Pennington.
This year’s finalists were chosen from 164 semifinalists. To qualify, a player must be a senior or graduate-student, have a GPA of at least 3.2, be a starter and demonstrate leadership qualities.
Players from all levels of college football are eligible.
The other finalists are: Harvard cornerback Andrew Berry; South Dakota State quarterback Ryan Berry; Carnegie Mellon tackle Brian Freeman; Yale cornerback Casey Gerald; Louisiana Tech linebacker Quin Harris; Colorado State linebacker Jeff Horinek; St. Cloud State defensive end Ryan Kees; California center Alex Mack; Mount Union quarterback Greg Micheli; and Utah kicker Louie Sakoda.
The winner will be announced Dec. 9 at the NFF awards banquet in New York. All the finalists receive an $18,000 scholarship toward postgraduate studies. The winner’s scholarship will be increased to $25,000.
For some of the finalists, that scholarship money might be put aside for while.
Robiskie, the son of former professional running back and longtime coach Terry Robiskie, is projected to be an NFL draft pick.
But having grown-up in an NFL family, Brian Robiskie knows planning on a long career in football is no way to ensure a secure future.
“You never know what can happen with football, but if you get your degree you always have that to fall back on,” said Robiskie, a marketing major with a 3.54 GPA in Ohio State’s business school. “Seeing first hand how the business of the NFL is, it was always something I thought about.”
Robiskie credits his parents, especially his mother, with teaching him the importance of education. Mom’s rule in the Robiskie home was bad grades equals no football. That was enough to make sure Brian stayed straight.
“I was always too scared that she would end up sitting me,” said Robiskie, who has 30 catches and five touchdowns this season for No. 13 Ohio State.
McDonald, a four-year starter for the Illini, also credited his parents with stressing academics. He said a plane trip he made as a youngster sparked a fascination with flying that led him to studying aerospace engineering. He’s already a semester into his postgraduate work.
McDonald said the toughest part about handling a challenging major while playing football is finding time to squeeze it all in. He has one class that requires 10-15 hours of homework per week.
“The hardest thing has been finding enough sleep,” he said. “At midterms, (my teammates and coaches) say my eyes glaze over and I have a deer-in-the-headlights look.”
With a 3.8 GPA, and on pace to break the school record for career starts, McDonald and the rest of the Draddy Trophy finalists prove that the term student-athlete isn’t an oxymoron.
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