RICHMOND, Va. – The College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) named 789 swimmers and divers to its Scholar All-American Team for the 2020-21 season. Of the 789 total award winners, Carson-Newman placed 12 individual athletes on the 2020-21 squads.
An even six male and female athletes brought home laurels for their performance inside the classroom as well as in the pool. C-N is one of four total Bluegrass Mountain Conference Championships teams which were awarded with Scholar All-Americans. Joining C-N with nominees are Wingate with a combined 27 athletes recognized, Queens (N.C.) with a combined 21 athletes recognized, and Lenoir-Rhyne with six total athletes on the teams.
For Carson-Newman, the six women athletes recognized were Rachel Peden (Boiling Springs, S.C.), Meredith Ginn (Ocala, Fla.), CJ Jensen (Copenhagen, Denmark), Manon Compagner (Balkburg, The Netherlands), Chrisman Rand (Mount Pleasant, S.C.), and Summer Osborne (Clearwater, Fla.). Both Osborne and Rand were named to the Honorable Mention/Second Team while the other four women placed on the Scholar All-American first team.
The men's side for C-N saw Chad Andoljsek (Slovenia), Nikita Puzevich (Belarus), Chase Rayment (South Africa), Brandon Meier (Greeneville, S.C.), Joey Clemmer (Murfreesboro, Tenn.), and Jed Little Anderson, S.C.) gain Scholar All-American honors. All six of the Eagle honorees were named to the Scholar All-American team's second team (honorable mention) squad.
To qualify for First-Team Scholar All-America, student-athletes must have earned a GPA of 3.5 or higher and participated in their national championship. Second-Team selections (also called Honorable Mention) must have also earned a 3.50 GPA or higher and achieved a "B" time standard for the national championship or participated at a diving zone qualification meet.
The award-winners studied a multitude of subjects ranging from A (Accounting) to Z (Zoology). More than a third (35%) of all award-winners are pursuing a major in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) field. Business majors were the second-most represented with 23% of recipients followed by the social sciences (13%). The most popular majors were biology, exercise science, psychology, business administration, mechanical engineering, and finance.
