Thirty-One Commodores Named to 2001 All-SEC Football Academic Team; Represents Most Ever Picked For Honors 12/4/01

Nashville, Tenn. - Thirty-one Vanderbilt football players were named to the Southeastern Conference Academic Honor Roll Tuesday, marking the most student-athletes ever recognized from a member university in a year.

The 31 Commodore student-athletes earning Academic Honor Roll this year surpasses the previous record of 23 football players recognized from Vanderbilt in 1998. The SEC initiated the Academic Honor Roll program in 1984.

Among those recognized by the SEC were Commodore co-captains Jamie Byrum, Nate Morrow and Dan Stricker. Also named were senior starters Duncan Cave, Wally Conyers, Pat Green, Harold Lercius, Rodney Williams, and Greg Zolman, and junior starters Justin Giboney, Hunter Hillenmeyer, Jim May, and Tom Simone.

Other seniors named to the SEC Honor Roll were Andrew Gardella, Jordan Hill, Ethan McDaniel, Tim Olmstead, Justin Purkey, Juan Rojas, Jason Shields, and Tyson Radtke. Juniors recognized were Mike Adam, Chuck Folino, Nick Getter, Mike Martin, Chris Mitacek, Ryan Nungesser, Jordan Pettit, Jonathan Shaub, Benji Walker and Doug Wolford.

The SEC Football Honor Roll honors are based on grades from the 2000-01 academic calendar. To be eligible, a student-athlete must meet the following criteria:
* have a 3.0 grade point average for either the past year or for their career;
* be a sophomore or higher in academic classification;
* and have 24 semester hours toward a degree.