The National Wrestling Coaches Association has announced its annual Division I All-Academic Top 30 Teams and the NWCA Individual All-Academic wrestling team for the 2010-11 wrestling season. 

Harvard is honored as the nation’s top academic wrestling program for the second year in a row, while three NCAA Champions also made the individual list. 

On this year’s Individual All-Academic Team there are 92 total athletes, three NCAA Champions, five NCAA Runner-Ups, 28 All-Americans and 83 NCAA Qualifiers.

The NWCA All-Academic Team records go back to 1991, which until this year the 2001 Princeton team held the highest team GPA of 3.43. This year that was broken by two teams who hold the No.1 and No.2 spots respectively. 

The Harvard University Crimson led this year’s team with a 3.51 GPA. This is the second year in a row that Harvard, lead by head coach Jay Weiss, has taken home top honors. 

Mark Cody’s team at American had another outstanding season as well, placing Top 5 at the NCAA Championships and for the second year in a row finishing No. 2 as an All-Academic Team with a GPA of 3.48. 

Both Harvard and American improved their Team GPA’s to lead this year’s Top 30 teams. 

The Top 10 Teams are: Harvard, American, Columbia, South Dakota State, Old Dominion, Princeton, Chattanooga, Nebraska, Utah Valley and Cornell.

Ten of the eleven Division I Conferences are represented in the Top 30. The EIWA has the most teams with nine. 

“Being able to recognize our coaches and their teams for the accomplishments that they have made academically is always a high point at the end of the season for our staff. All of the athletes that have made this year’s team are setting themselves up for success once they leave college, they are becoming leaders of the future,” said Mike Moyer, NWCA Executive Director. 

For teams to be eligible for consideration, the team GPA is comprised of 12 student athletes, including the 10 wrestlers that were the entries in the NCAA tournament conference qualifier. If teams had less than 10 entries for their respective qualifier, they may fill those spots with wrestlers that competed in at least one varsity dual during the season.

Top 30 All-Academic Teams

The Individual All-Academic Team also has qualifying standards by GPA and season record/accomplishment. Ninety-two wrestlers take this honor home with them; out of that group 83 of them competed at the 2011 NCAA Division I Championships in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The 2011 individual with the highest GPA is North Dakota State’s Tyler Johnson who has 4.0, while majoring in Biology. 

This year’s NCAA Elite 88 Winner Nick Amuchastegui, comes in at No. 2 with a 3.979 GPA at Stanford University where he is majoring in Mechanical Engineering. The Elite 88 Award is presented to the top athlete qualifying for a post-season championship in each of the NCAA’s 88 national championship events.

Rounding out the Top 5 highest GPA’s are Ryan Flores of American with a 3.94, Nebraska’s Tucker Lane with a 3.937, and Daniel Mitchell of American with a 3.927.

The three NCAA Champions on this year’s Individual Team are: Penn State’s Quentin Wright, Kyle Dake  of Cornell, and Lehigh’s Zachery Rey.

American University sets another record this year with six individuals making the team, prior to this the individual team record set was five athletes. All six of these individuals qualified for the NCAA Tournament, while three of them earned the title of All-American, they are: Steve Fittery, Ryan Flores, Patrick Graham, Matthew Mariacher, Daniel Mitchell and Ganbayar Sanjaa.  

Both Cornell University and the University of Oklahoma had five individuals named to the team, both with three All-Americans.

All-Academic Individual Team

The National Wrestling Coaches Association, established in 1928, is a non-profit organization for the advancement of all levels of the sport of wrestling with primary emphasis on developing coaches who work in academic environments. The membership embraces all people interested in amateur wrestling. 

The three core competencies of the NWCA are: Coaching Development, student-athlete welfare, and promotion of wrestling.