July 2, 2014
NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Junior Chris Giesting has been named the 2014 Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Outdoor Track and Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year and heads up the sport’s All-ACC Academic Team, as announced today by Commissioner John Swofford.
Giesting, who was also named the 2014 ACC Men’s Indoor Track and Field Scholar-Athlete of the Year in April, is coming off an outdoor season in which he earned first team All-America honors with a seventh-place time of 46.10 in the men’s 400-meter dash at last month’s NCAA Championships. Giesting was also a member of the Fighting Irish’s NCAA-qualifying 4×400 relay team.
Prior to the NCAAs, Giesting helped Notre Dame to a third-place finish in its first ever ACC Championship by competing in four events. Running the 200 and 400 meters, as well as legs of the 4×100 and 4×400 relay teams, Giesting was instrumental in collecting 20 team points for the Irish.
A junior majoring in Management Entrepreneurship, Giesting is actively enrolled in the Notre Dame Student Welfare and Development “Rosenthal Academy.” The Bates, Ind., native is in his second year in the program, which seeks to provide emerging and existing leaders with progressive annual programming. Student-athletes are nominated by peers and selected by coaches for enrollment in the Academy.
The ACC Scholar-Athlete of the Year awards were established in September 2007 to be awarded annually to the top junior or senior student-athlete in their respective sports. Candidates for the awards must have maintained a 3.0 grade point average for their career as well as a 3.0 for each of the last two semesters.
Including Giesting, seven men and six women from Notre Dame were named to the track and field All-ACC Academic Teams. Joining Giesting is senior and 2014 Capital One Academic All-American Logan Renwick, graduate student J.P. Malette, senior Patrick Feeney, juniors Dominick Padovano and Keith Mesidor and sophomore Michael Clevenger. On the women’s side, Notre Dame is represented by seniors Alexa Aragon, Megan Yanik and Vivien Devaney, juniors Amber Lalla and Emily Morris and sophomore Margaret Bamgbose.
To be eligible for All-ACC Academic Team consideration, a student-athlete must have earned a minimum 3.00 grade point average for the previous semester and maintained a minimum 3.00 cumulative average during his academic career.
–Lauren Chval, Media Relations Assistant
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