Men’s cross country runner John Tumbleston has been named to the 2006 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America University Division Men’s Track and Field/Cross Country First Team. Details...
He is a two-time First Team Academic All-America selection and a three-time First Team Academic All-District III honoree.
The first, second and third teams recognize a combined 48 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. Athletes nominated by their sports information directors were recently 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’s honor marks the 10th time that a Phoenix athlete has reached CoSIDA Academic All-America status since Elon officially entered the NCAA Division I ranks seven years ago, joining the University Division for the 1999-2000 academic year. He becomes the first Elon athlete to obtain first-team recognition as both a junior and a senior since men’s tennis player Peter Lindstrom did it back in 1993 and 1994. Tumbleston, the University of Wisconsin’s Nathan Brown and the University of Arkansas’ Jaanus Uudmae are the only repeat honorees on the first team this year.
Tumbleston graduated summa cum laude from Elon in May with a 4.00 cumulative grade-point average as a double major in physics and science education. The three-time TIAA-CREF Academic All-Southern Conference team 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.
This spring, the two-time team MVP earned both the 2006 Southern Conference/Dave Hart Postgraduate Scholarship and an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. Last month, Tumbleston was honored as the A.L. Hook Scholar-Athlete at Elon’s annual athletics banquet for the second consecutive year. He also received the Omicron Delta/John W. Barney Memorial Award last month, which is presented annually to the Elon senior with the highest career GPA.
A four-year letterman and two-year team captain, Tumbleston holds five of Elon’s all-time top-10 cross country times, including one tied for the school record. He has competed in the conference championship meet and the NCAA Southeast Regional meet all four years. He was named the Southern Conference Runner of the Week as well as the TIAA-CREF SoCon Student-Athlete of the Week during his senior season last fall.
Tumbleston has competed in 29 of Elon’s 30 races over the past four years, scoring in 28 of those meets while emerging as the top Phoenix finisher on 14 occasions. He earned his team’s Massey Family Sportsmanship Award in 2003 and ran to Southeastern Collegiate Invitational champion status in 2005. He represented his team on the Elon Student-Athlete Advisory Council the last three years.
An eight-time President’s List and Athletics Director’s Honor Roll student at Elon, Tumbleston has served as a North Carolina Teaching Fellow, an Elon Honors Fellow and a physics teaching and research assistant. He plans on attending graduate school this fall, pursuing his master’s degree and Ph.D. in physics on his way to becoming a university professor.