2017 CoSIDA Division III Men's Track Academic All-Americans

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. -- Illinois Wesleyan senior Eric Rydell has been named to the first team of the Division III Men's Track and Field Academic All-America® Team, as selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
 
The Wednesday (June 21) selections of Rydell in men's track and Amelia Glueck in women's track bring the total to 125 for the number of Illinois Wesleyan Academic All-Americans ® since the program began in 1970. The complete list of IWU Academic All-Americans ® is available here.

Rydell (St. Joseph, St. Joseph-Ogden HS), who was a third team Academic All-American selection in 2016. has a 3.94 grade-point average as a psychology major at Illinois Wesleyan and graduated with summa cum laude honors last 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.