Keith Bechtol Named First-Team Academic All-American

Senior Earns Second National Academic Award

07/02/07 11:20AM

WILLIAMSBURG - William and Mary senior Keith Bechtol (Alexandria, Va.) earned the second national academic award of his career last week with the announcement of the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America teams for track and field and cross country.

Bechtol, a third-team honoree in 2006, was voted to the First-Team Academic All-America squad by a vote of sports information directors from around the nation. He is the first Tribe athlete to earn first-team honors since basketball-standout Adam Hess in 2004.

This season, Bechtol established himself as a national-level competitor at 10,000m, coming within one second of earning All-American honors at the NCAA Championships. The only male from the Colonial Athletic Association at the national meet, Bechtol earned his place by running 28:55.57 in April at Stanford, provisionally qualifying for the 2008 Olympic Trials as well as NCAAs. He was also a stand-out at 5,000m, winning his second CAA title in that event and earning All-East honors both indoors and outdoors. During the cross country season, Bechtol led the team at the Southeast Regional in seventh place, and finished 60th at the NCAA Championships.

This is the latest in a long line of academic honors for Bechtol, who graduated magna cum laude in May with a degree in Physics. Inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in December, Bechtol is also the most honored scholar-athlete in CAA history with five Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards to his name (three in track, two in cross country). A three-time Academic All-District first-team member, Bechtol has conducted research at some of the top physics labs around the country, including the Thomas Jefferson National Laboratory in Newport News, Virginia, and will continue his academic career by pursuing a Ph.D. from Stanford.