CoSIDA Academic All-District Division III Men's Track and Field Teams

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – For the second straight year, Illinois Wesleyan senior Eric Rydell has been elected to the Academic All-District 7 ® Division III Men's Track and Field team and will be on the ballot for the Academic All-America® Team, where first, second, and third-team All-America honorees will be elected in June.
 
Rydell (St. Joseph, St. Joseph-Ogden HS) has a 3.94 grade-point average as a psychology major at Illinois Wesleyan and graduated with summa cum laude honors earlier this month. Rydell was the winner of the College Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin Merle Chapman Award, was president of the school's SAAC chapter and is a member of Alpha Lambda Delta scholastic honorary. He served as a laboratory assistant in the IWU Dog Psychology testing and presented an honors research paper, "Examining the Evolution of Cognition Using a Breed Differences Approach."
Last summer, Rydell was awarded an Illinois Wesleyan Freeman Asian Internship and spent 10 weeks working in social enterprise development for Human Nature, a private firm that uses its profits to help eradicate poverty in the Philippines.

Rydell, who was the Titans' "MVP" as a senior and junior, placed third in the outdoor CCIW with a high jump of 6 feet-6 1/4 inches after placing fifth in the event at the CCIW indoor meet.
As a junior, Rydell was an All-American with his eighth place finish in the NCAA Division III indoor meet and placed 16th in the high jump in the NCAA Division III outdoor championships. At the CCIW indoor meet, Rydell tied a meet record of 6 feet-9 1/2 inches to win the high jump and he was all-CCIW with a second place finish in the high jump at the conference outdoor meet.

The 2017 Academic All-District® Men's Track and Field team, selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom. To be nominated, a student-athlete must be a starter or important reserve with at least a 3.30 cumulative grade-point average (on a 4.0 scale) at their current institution.

The District 7 team includes players from Division III schools in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.