Cross country runner John Tumbleston is the latest Phoenix student-athlete to earn recognition on an Academic All-America team. Details...
Tumbleston, a junior from Boone, N.C., was named to the 2005 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America University Division Men’s Track and Field/Cross Country First Team June 21. He is a two-time First Team Academic All-District III selection.
The first, second and third teams recognize a combined 46 student-athletes, representing 37 different NCAA Division I institutions in the sports of men’s cross country, men’s indoor track and men’s outdoor track and field. Earlier this month, athletes were nominated by their sports information directors and selected to Academic All-District squads by a vote of members of the College Sports Information Directors of America within each of the eight districts, placing 80 candidates on the national ballot for the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Team.
Tumbleston becomes the ninth Phoenix athlete to reach CoSIDA Academic All-America status since Elon officially entered the NCAA Division I ranks six years ago, joining the University Division for the 1999-2000 academic year. He becomes the third Phoenix star to earn Academic All-America accolades this year, joining football player Brandon Mason and men’s tennis player Pramote Malasitt. He’s the first Elon athlete to obtain first team recognition as a junior since men’s tennis player Peter Lindstrom did it back in 1993.
Tumbleston has fashioned a 3.99 cumulative grade point average during his three years as a double major in physics and science education at Elon. The two-time TIAA-CREF Academic All-Southern Conference member has also been inducted into the Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Beta Delta (International Studies), Pi Gamma Mu (Social Sciences), Chi Alpha Sigma (Athletics) and Phi Eta Sigma national honor societies. He is also a Teaching Fellow and an Honors Fellow.
A six-time President’s List and six-time Athletics Director’s Honor Roll student at Elon, Tumbleston was named the 2004-05 A.L. Hook Scholar-Athlete of the Year at Elon’s annual athletics banquet in May. This summer, he is conducting research with a physics professor at Wake Forest University. He served the Phoenix as a team co-captain last season and as one of the squad’s representatives on the Student-Athlete Advisory Council the past two years.
Tumbleston competed in six of Elon’s seven 2004 races, emerging as the squad’s top finisher on four occasions including at the Southern Conference Meet and at the NCAA Southeast Regional Meet on his way to earning team MVP honors. He finished 15th out of 75 runners at the Adidas Invitational at N.C. State, 58th out of 175 athletes at the Furman Invitational and 32nd out of 85 competitors at the Southern Conference Meet last fall.