The Baseball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is the annual most outstanding singular college baseball athlete of the set of baseball athletes selected for the Academic All-America Teams in a given year. The following is a list of the annual selection by College Sports Communicators (CSC), known before the 2022–23 season as the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), and its Academic All-America sponsor of the individual athlete selected as the most outstanding of the annual Baseball Academic All-America selections. Between 1996 and 2011, one winner each was chosen from both the college and University Divisions for all twelve Academic All-America teams including football. The Academic All-America program recognizes combined athletic and academic excellence of the nation's top student-athletes. The University Division team included eligible participants from National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I member schools, while the College Division team included scholar-athletes from all of the following: NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III, National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), Canadian universities and colleges and two-year schools.
Beginning in 2012, CSC revamped its award structure. The University Division was renamed "Division I". Since then, NCAA Divisions II and III have had their own separate All-Americans. The College Division consisted only of non-NCAA institutions through the 2017–18 school year, after which it was effectively replaced by an NAIA division restricted to members of that governing body.[1][a]
Currently, each team selects Academic All-District honorees in eight geographic districts across the United States and Canada.[2] The districts are as follows: – District 1 (CT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT), District 2 (DC, DE, KY, MD, NJ, PA, WV), District 3 (NC, TN, VA), District 4 (AL, FL, GA, PR, SC), District 5 (IL, IN, MI, OH), District 6 (AR, IA, LA, MN, MO, MS, MT, ND, SD, WI, WY), – District 7 (CO, ID, KS, NE, NM, NV, OK, TX), District 8 (AK, AZ, CA, HI, OR, UT, WA, Canada).[3] First team All-District honorees make the All-America team ballots. Currently, all twelve Academic All-American teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, men's and women's track & field, men's baseball, women's softball, men's American football, women's volleyball and men's and women's at-large teams) have four Academic All-Americans of the Year, one from each division. In each of the four divisions (NAIA, Division I, Division II, and Division III), one of the twelve sport-by-sport Academic All-Americans of the Year is selected as the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for that division.[4]
On August 7, 2012, Division III honoree Drew Golz of Wheaton College became the first Baseball Academic All-America Team Member of the Year to be named Division III Academic All-America Team Member of the Year. That same year Golz had been named Men's Soccer Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, becoming the first male student-athlete to be named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for two different sports in the same year.[7] The next day, Division II honoree Bryan Lippincott of Concordia University, St. Paul became the Division II Academic All-America Team Member of the Year.[8] Thus, for the 2011–12 academic calendar, baseball had the Academic All-America Team Member of the Year for two of the four Divisions. The most recent baseball awardee that was named overall Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is John Coleman of Division III Clarkson University. Like Golz, Clarkson was named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year, having been previously named Academic All-America Team Member of the Year in basketball. Coleman was the third and second male two-sport honoree, following Golz in 2011–12 and Cynthia Capp of West Virginia Wesleyan who earned the honor in volleyball (1990) and softball (1991).[9]
When the Division I level was known as the University Division, it had repeat back-to-back winners in 2000 and 2001 as well as 2002 and 2003 with Casey Myers (of Arizona State Sun Devils baseball)[10][11] being followed by Jeff Leise (of Nebraska Cornhuskers baseball).[12][13] In 2001 and 2002, Douglas Hargett of University of North Alabama was the first College Division repeat winner before the College Division was split.[11][12] Since Division II and Division III were split from NAIA, two-year and Canadian schools, Conner Combs repeated for the Division III East Texas Baptist Tigers in 2016 and 2017.[14][15]
Tables of winners
Key
†
Indicates winners of the all-sports Academic All-America award.
All winners are American unless indicated otherwise.
Two-division era (1988–2011)
Baseball Academic All-America Team Members of the Year (1988–2011)
^The College Division still exists within the CoSIDA Academic All-America program, but awards are only presented in CoSIDA's "at-large" category, encompassing sports in which the organization does not select a dedicated Academic All-America team. See CoSIDA's official calendar for announcement of its 2019–20 Academic All-America honorees.
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