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Huskers Tie
School Record
with Five
CoSIDA Academic All-Americans
Lincoln
- The Nebraska track and field team continued the academic success of
Nebraska Athletics on Tuesday with the release of the Capital One
Academic All-America Men’s Track and Field/Cross Country Teams as
five Huskers were honored. The men’s track and field team now has
a total of 19 CoSIDA Academic All-Americans and has produced 14
Academic All-Americans since 2002 when the track and field/cross
country team was created after it was part of the men’s at-large
program prior to the 2002 season.
Junior Bjorn Barrefors earned CoSIDA Academic All-America honors for
the second straight year, as he moved from the third-team to the first
team, while teammate Nicholas Gordon also earned his second straight
honor as a second-team pick after being honored on the first team last
season. Barrefors and Gordon were joined by junior Nate Polacek (second
team), senior Adam Dailey (third team) and junior Tyler Hitchler (third
team).
Nebraska’s nation-leading total of CoSIDA Academic All-Americans
grows to 289 selections across all sports, while the five selections
for the men’s track and field team tied a school record for the
most student-athletes selected from a team across all sports at
Nebraska all-time. The Huskers’ 1997 national championship
football team also produced five honorees, including Chad Kelsay, Jon
Zatechka, Scott Frost, Grant Wistrom and Joel Makovicka.
The men’s track and field team also had the most CoSIDA Academic
All-America selections of any team across all sports nationally during
the 2010-11 season. The Huskers were one ahead of both Akron’s
national championship men’s soccer team and Florida’s
national runner-up softball team.
Barrefors continued to excel in the multi-events under Coach Kris
Grimes, adding a pair of second-team All-America honors in 2011. A
native of Stockholm, Sweden, Barrefors placed ninth in the heptathlon
during the indoor season and 12th in the decathlon outdoors. He also
captured the first Big 12 title of his career with 5,779 points in the
heptathlon at the Big 12 Indoor Championships.
Named the 2011 Nebraska Male Student-Athlete of the Year, Gordon placed
11th in the long jump at the NCAA Indoor Championships and took ninth
at the outdoor meet. He also added three All-Big 12 honors in 2011,
bringing his career total to 11, with a pair of runner-up finishes in
the long jump and an eighth-place finish in the triple jump during the
indoor season.
The Huskers’ other three honorees all hail from the state of
Nebraska and competed in the NCAA Championships this season. Dailey, a
native of Wahoo, Neb., was a 13-time All-Big 12 performer for the
Huskers during his career and earned his fourth straight bid to the
NCAA Outdoor Championships in 2011, where he ran the 400-meter hurdles
and the 4x400-meter relay. Polacek earned the first All-America trophy
of his career in 2011 as the Kearney, Neb., native placed fourth in the
pole vault at the NCAA Indoor Championships with a personal-best leap
of 17-10 ½. Hitchler produced All-America honors for the second
straight season in the discus this season with his seventh-place throw
of 184-7. A native of Fremont, Neb., Hitchler has competed at the NCAA
Outdoor Championships in the discus during each of his first three
season at Nebraska.
Overall, Nebraska student-athletes have earned 12 CoSIDA Academic
All-America honors is 2010-11 and will look to add to that number on
Thursday when the women’s track and field/cross country teams are
released.
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