Five Western Athletic Conference student-athletes were named to men’s and women’s track and field/cross country ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American teams on Friday, June 19. The selections are voted on by the College Sports Information Directors of America.
Idaho led the conference, placing two on the three-team squad. Senior Allix Lee-Painter and junior Jonathan Marler garnered honors. Louisiana Tech’s Kinsey Dinnel, Boise State’s Simon Wardhaugh and Hawai`i’s Annett Wichmann were also selected.
Earning second team honors, Lee-Painter, a senior distance runner from Moscow, Idaho, was the 2008 Western Athletic Conference Cross Country Women’s Athlete of the Year, WAC cross country champion, 2009 WAC Indoor Track Performer of the Year and WAC indoor 5,000m champion, 3,000m runner-up and one-mile runner-up?and she did it all while maintaining a 3.83 grade-point average with a double-major in Secondary Education and English.
Marler, who earned third team honors, has maintained a 4.0 GPA through his Vandal career, while tallying five all-WAC honors in six WAC Championship meets. He holds career bests of 6-6.75 in both the indoor and outdoor high jump and this season picked up the javelin, which he threw 193-9 in just his second career competition.
Simon Wardhaugh concluded an excellent track and field career at Boise State with the announcement he has received second team academic All-American honors from ESPN the Magazine.
A senior from Bracken Ridge, Australia, Wardhaugh earned the award with a 3.41 cumulative grade-point-average while majoring in business management at Boise State. Wardhaugh is a two-time Western Athletic Conference (WAC) all-academic selection, and earlier this month was named to ESPN the Magazine’s District 8 all-academic team.
Wardhaugh is also a three-time NCAA All-American. Twice he earned All-American honors during the indoor season with fifth place finishes in the men’s weight throw at the 2008 and 2009 indoor championships. Last week he received his third All-American award with a third place finish in the hammer at the outdoor national championship.
Receiving a nod to the second team, Kinsey Dinnel was chosen for his efforts both on and off the track for 2009 as the Loranger, La. native recorded a career best time of 9:05.75 in the steeple chase which qualified him to compete in a tough Mideast regional in Louisville, Ky. where he finished 23rd.
He maintained a 3.9 GPA as an undergrad while majoring in Biology and now holds a 3.8 GPA in graduate school at Louisiana Tech.
Hawai?i multi-event athlete Annett Wichmann was named to the first team, the third consecutive year she has been named to either the first, second, or third teams.
Wichmann was a second-team pick in 2008 and third team selection in 2007. Earlier this season, the Jena, Germany native was named to the Academic All-District VIII first team for the third consecutive year. Just this week, Wichmann was named to the Western Athletic Conference’s all-academic team for the fourth straight year.
Wichmann recently completed a remarkable four-year career last week with a seventh place finish in the heptathlon at the NCAA Championships. She also became the WAC’s first four-time champion in the heptathlon as well as a three-time champion in the pentathlon. She concluded both conference championships by being named co-Field Athlete of the Meet and finished with a total of 13 career WAC medals.
Complete list of the women's team
Complete list of the men's team