Swimberghe, Giddens Named Academic All-SLC
1/9/2017 3:23:00 PM | Football
FRISCO, Texas – The Sam Houston State Bearkats landed a pair of student-athletes on the Southland Conference All-Academic Team in senior Luc Swimberghe and sophomore P.J. Giddens as announced by league officials on Monday.
It is the first all-academic selection for Swimberghe who graduated in August with a 3.37 GPA and a bachelors degree in marketing, and spent the 2016 season enrolled in graduate courses. Swimberghe became the all-time leading scorer at Sam Houston and in the Southland Conference among kickers as a senior, and was an honorable mention all-Southland Conference performer.
He made four of his seven field goal tries on the year and 82 of 86 PAT tries in 2016, finishing with 35 made field goals and 366 points for his career.
Meanwhile, Giddens found his way onto the all-Academic team for the second straight year and was an automatic selection to the team after earning CoSIDA Academic All-District honors in November. The redshirt sophomore holds a 3.76 GPA in general business and was one of the Bearkats' primary go-to weapons on special teams. He finished the season with 14 total tackles and a forced fumble and set up a touchdown with a blocked punt against Texas Southern late in the year.
To be an automatic selection, a student-athlete must be a first-team All-Southland Conference honoree, a Capital One CoSIDA Academic All-American/All-District selection or named to the FCS Athletic Directors Association Academic All-Star Team, which was announced this week leading up to the FCS national championship game.
The All-Academic teams are voted on by the head coaches, sports information directors and academic advisors from each Southland Conference university. Student-athletes must possess a 3.0 cumulative GPA, have completed one full academic year at the nominating institution and participated in at least 50 percent of the team's competition to qualify for the all-academic squad.
