May 22, 2008
ST. LOUIS -
Illinois State's Dan Simnick and Dan Weiner highlighted the list of 33 Redbird football players who earned selection to the 2007 Gateway Football Conference Honor Roll, as announced Thursday by the league office. Simnick and Weiner earned the league's highest academic achievement by capturing the Gateway Football Conference President's Council Academic Excellence Award.
The President's Council Academic Excellence Award requires a minimum 3.5 cumulative grade-point average (GPA), participation in athletics for a minimum of two years and the student-athlete must be within 18 hours of graduation.
Currently enrolled in ISU's MBA program, Simnick is a seven-time member of the AFNI Athletics Honor Roll and a three-year letterwinner. In the summer of 2007, he was honored by Illinois State's Management and Quantitative Methods (MQM) Department with the 2007 MQM Foundation Award for Citizenship and Service. A 2007 honorable mention All-Gateway Academic Team selection, Simnick played in 10 games last season with five starting assignments. He finished with 13 tackles, including 1.5 tackles-for-loss and half of a quarterback sack.
With a 3.60 GPA in history, Weiner was a key contributor to the Redbirds on special teams for the last two seasons. After serving four years (2000-04) with the United States Marine Corps, Weiner transferred to Illinois State following a two-year stint at Palomar Junior College in San Marcos, Calif. A four-time member of the AFNI Athletics Honor Roll, Weiner was named to the All-Gateway Academic Honorable Mention Team in 2007. He played in eight games during the 2007 season, all on special teams, and posted two tackles in the victory at Youngstown State.
Also, ISU's Graham Corcoran, Warren McCarty, Kedric Meredith and Jonathon St-Pierre received the league's Commissioner's Academic Excellence Award. That achievement requires a minimum GPA of 3.2 for the previous two semesters, a minimum 3.2 GPA for the current term (Fall 2007), and participation in athletics. Freshmen are not eligible.
In addition, the Gateway Football Conference has announced its honor roll, which recognizes academic achievement of football student-athletes. To qualify for the honor roll, a student-athlete must have recorded a minimum 3.0 GPA for a specified term (Fall 2007), must have been a member of an athletics team, and must have a mini¬mum of 12 hours of enrollment during the fall semester. Over 200 Gateway student-athletes were named to the honor roll team.
ISU representatives on the 2007 honor roll included: Simnick, Weiner, Corcoran, McCarty, Meredith, St-Pierre, Adam Blankenship, Ben Bleck-Owens, Eric Brunner, Tyler Doering, Luke Drone, Preston Earl, Steven Fetzer, Cliffton Gordon, Barry Hartman, Osric Hayes, Brent Holtz, James Hoyt, Landon Humbles, Kurt James, Drew Kempe, Marcus King, Casey Kociuba, Kevin Mazur, Cal McCarthy, Nathan Rebholz, Cortes Rice, Rafael Rice, Garry Roberts, Kyle Sisko¬wic, Jarek Thomas, Tommie Westbrook and Dane Zumbahlen.
