Academics

Urschel receives Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar recognition

John Urschel is one of four Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar for 2014. Credit: Patrick Mansell / Penn StateCreative Commons

Diverse Issues In Higher Education recognized Penn State’s John Urschel as an Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholar for 2014, adding to the All-American guard’s list of accolades.

The publication recognized the football star as well as three other scholar athletes earlier this month. Urschel, along with Ishaq Pitt, University of Maryland–Eastern Shore, basketball; Michelle Ikoma, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, gymnastics; and Marvellous Iheukwumere, Columbia University, track; were selected from more than 600 students nominated by their institutions for outstanding performance in athletics and academics as well as community service.

Urschel was also recently named the recipient of the 84th James E. Sullivan Award, presented by the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) to America’s top amateur athlete. In 2013, he received the William V. Campbell Trophy from the National Football Foundation (NFF) as college football’s premier scholar-athlete.

A team co-captain, Urschel claimed Associated Press Third Team All-America honors and was a two-time First Team All-Big Ten guard. A 2013 Big Ten Medal of Honor recipient, Urschel garnered back-to-back First-team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 2012 and 2013, and Academic All-District honors for three straight years. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in May 2012, a master’s degree in mathematics a year later and has been working on a second master’s degree in math education – all while maintaining a perfect 4.0 grade-point average. He was a three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree and a Big Ten Distinguished Scholar.

 In February, Urschel participated in the NFL Scouting Combine and has been engaged to write a diary about his preparations for the NFL Draft by The Associated Press.

Urschel has taught the college-level courses Integral Vector Calculus and Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry, and has had several research papers published, including “Instabilities of the Sun-Jupiter-Asteroid Three Body Problem” in the journal Celestial Mechanics and Dynamic Astronomy, and “A Space-Time Multigrid Method for the Numerical Valuation of Barrier Options” in the journal Communications in Mathematical Finance.

Last Updated April 16, 2014

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