AUSTIN, Texas – Senior Fermin Ruiz Crespo (Mollina, Spain) capped an outstanding year for Alabama A&M Athletics as he was named to the CoSIDA At-Large Academic All-America Third-Team, becoming just the fifth individual to earn that lofty status in the history of the program as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) on Friday, August 6.
 
Ruiz Crespo's selection is historic on numerous levels as it marks the third such honor of the year for the Bulldogs – equaling the three the program had earned previously in the 69-year history of the award. He joins women's basketball's Dariauna Lewis (Omaha, Neb.) and football's Marcus Cushine (Palm Beach, Fla.) who pulled it off this year.
 
It also comes following a 29-year drought after football's Tim McCannelly (1979-80) and Tracy Kendall (1989-90 and 1990-91) accomplished the feat at the Division II level. Ruiz Crespo's honor also makes A&M a perfect six-for-six in Academic All-America honors when an individual earns an Academic All-District recognition.
 
He is also the first At-Large selection in program history, and of the 47 men's selections and 45 women's honorees named today, he is the only student-athlete to be selected from a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). Of the 47 on the men's side, he is also one of 21 individuals with a perfect 4.0 GPA.
 
That is made even more impressive when considering that the At-Large Team is comprised of all sports that do not have their own category, including ones such as rifle, swimming, tennis, bowling, golf, lacrosse, wrestling, fencing, ice hockey, water polo, skiing and gymnastics. This makes it one of the more difficult teams to be selected to given the sheer number of individuals as well as the schools represented on this year's team.
 
That group includes institutions such as Louisville, Penn State, Brown, Alabama, UCLA, Virginia, Arizona State, Stanford, Michigan, Purdue, Indiana, North Carolina, Michigan State, Florida, Duke and California. And now you can add Alabama A&M to that list.
 
FERMIN RUIZ CRESPO'S 2020-21 SEASON ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Taking care of business in the classroom with a sterling 4.0 in Civil Engineering, Ruiz Crespo helped lead the Bulldogs to new heights this year. That began with a 4-1 mark in Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) play that helped earn them the No. 2 seed in the league tournament.
 
From there they would notch a pair of thrilling 4-3 victories to claim the first SWAC Tournament Championship in program history and the first ever NCAA Tournament berth that came with it. A key component to that success, he played in all 13 matches, going 4-5 in doubles and winning four straight against Troy, Samford, Belmont and Prairie View from March 5-13.
 
Additionally, he has earned his place on both the SWAC Commissioners Honor Roll and Alabama A&M Athletic Directors Honor Roll, four and three times, respectively, over the course of his career.
 
"I'm very proud of Fermin's academic achievement," said head coach Willis Mbandi. "He has been a leader on our team and has showed that with discipline and dedication, one can excel in academics and on the court too."
 
With his honor, Ruiz Crespo closes out the 2020-21 award season for Alabama A&M, one in which they collected 109 total honors that include 18 All-American/All-America recognitions – a record-setting three of them from CoSIDA.
 
ABOUT THE COSIDA ACADEMIC ALL-AMERICA PROGRAM
The 2020-21 CoSIDA Academic All-America At-Large Teams, selected by the College Sports Information Directors of America, have been released to recognize the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances athletically and in the classroom.
 
To be eligible for Academic All-District and All-America consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic standings at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director. Since the program's inception in 1952, CoSIDA has bestowed Academic All-America honors on more than 20,000 student-athletes in Divisions I, II, III and NAIA, covering all NCAA championship sports.
 
2020-21 CoSIDA Academic All-America At-Large Teams

FIRST-TEAM
Sport	Name	School	Yr.	GPA	Major
Swimming	Nick Albiero	Louisville	Sr.	3.95	Health & Human Performance in Exercise Science
Gymnastics	Jack Baldwin	Penn State	Sr.	4.0	Mechanical Engineering
Golf	Ford Clegg	Mississippi State	Jr.	4.0	Finance
Lacrosse	Phil Goss	Brown	Sr.	4.0	Economics & Political Science
Volleyball	Miki Jauhiainen	Brigham Young	Gr.	4.0/4.0	Computer Science (G)
Swimming	Eric Knowles	North Carolina State	Sr.	4.0	Materials Science Engineering
Ice Hockey	Jack LaFontaine	Minnesota	Sr.	3.83	English
Swimming	Derek Maas	Alabama	Sr.	4.0	Biology / Premed
Swimming	Micah Oh	U.S. Naval Academy	Sr.	4.0	Honors Applied Mathematics
Tennis	Jannik Opitz	Western Michigan	Gr.	4.0/4.0	Applied Statistics
Swimming	Nicholas Perera	Alabama	Jr.	4.0	Mechanical Engineering
Water Polo	Nicolas Saveljic	UCLA	Gr.	3.85/3.85	Education
Tennis	Carl Söderlund	Virginia	Gr.	3.73/3.72	Commerce
Wrestling	Anthony Valencia	Arizona State	Sr.	4.0	Business (Communication)
Gymnastics	Shane Wiskus	Minnesota	Sr.	3.40	Business & Marketing Education
SECOND-TEAM
Sport	Name	School	Yr.	GPA	Major
Water Polo	Tyler Abramson	Stanford	Sr.	3.60	Management Science & Engineering
Wrestling	Myles Amine	Michigan	Gr.	3.40/3.82	Business Administration (UG) / Sport Mgmt. (G)
Swimming	Cade Auerbach	Alabama	Sr.	4.0	Finance / Economics / Math
Wrestling	Paul Bianchi	Arkansas-Little Rock	Sr.	4.0	Sport Management
Swimming	Ben Bramley	Purdue	Jr.	3.89	Finance
Swimming	Andrew Capobianco	Indiana	Jr.	3.75	Exercise Science
Lacrosse	Christian Daniel	U.S. Naval Academy	Sr.	3.84	Astrophysics
Lacrosse	Conor Gaffney	Lehigh	Gr.	3.95/4.0	Mechanical Engineering & Finance (UG)
Lacrosse	Chris Gray	North Carolina	Sr.	3.65	Management & Society
Wrestling	Shane Griffith	Stanford	Jr.	3.54	Science, Technology & Society
Wrestling	Zach Hartman	Bucknell	Jr.	3.91	Biology (Pre-Med)
Ice Hockey	Austin Kamer	Michigan State	Sr.	4.0	Chemical Engineering
Wrestling	Nick Lee	Penn State	Sr.	3.53	Health Policy & Administration
Ice Hockey	Strauss Mann	Michigan	Jr.	3.91	Business Administration
Tennis	Charlie Morkel	UNC Asheville	Sr.	4.0	Mathematics & Economics
Tennis	Sam Riffice	Florida	Jr.	3.72	Political Science
Tennis	Andrew Ton	U.S. Naval Academy	Sr.	3.77	Quantitative Economics
THIRD-TEAM
Sport	Name	School	Yr.	GPA	Major
Lacrosse	Alex Akins	Detroit Mercy	Gr.	3.90/4.0	MBA
Lacrosse	Michael Altmann	Hofstra	Gr.	3.57/3.81	Management (UG)/Marketing (G)
Swimming	Nate Biondi	California	Sr.	3.57	American Studies
Tennis	Axel Geller	Stanford	Sr.	3.80	Economics
Wrestling	Hayden Hidlay	North Carolina State	Gr.	3.52/4.0	Business Admin. (UG)/Nonprofit Management (G)
Fencing	Finn Hossfeld	Duke	So.	3.88	Public Policy
Wrestling	Mason Kauffman	Northern Illinois	Sr.	4.0	Kinesiology
Golf	David Laskin	Arizona	Sr.	3.75	Finance
Fencing	Nestor Levin	U.S. Air Force Academy	Jr.	3.86	Engineering Chemistry
Swimming	Alex Liang	Stanford	Sr.	3.61	Economics
Gymnastics	Andrew Lyubovsky	William & Mary	Sr.	3.83	Computer Science/Neuroscience
Tennis	Francisco Rocha	Middle Tennessee State	Jr.	4.0	Economics/Business Administration
Tennis	Fermin Ruiz Crespo	Alabama A&M	Sr.	4.0	Civil Engineering
Tennis	Pascal Wagemaker	Georgia Southern	Sr.	4.0	Mechanical Engineering
Skiing	Joey Young	Colorado	Sr.	3.85	Finance/Accounting

 
 
Alabama A&M History of Academic All-America Selections (6 Selections/5 Individuals)
2020-21 – Fermin Ruiz Crespo (At-Large/Men's Tennis) – Third-Team
2020-21 – Marcus Cushine (Football) – Second-Team
2020-21 – Dariauna Lewis (Women's Basketball) – Third-Team
1990-91 – Tracy Kendall (Football) – First-Team
1989-90 – Tracy Kendall (Football) – First-Team
1979-80 – Tim McCannelly (Football) – Second-Team