PEORIA, Ill. ? Bradley senior defender Todd Reedy (Springdale, Ark./Springdale H.S.) joined a select group of Bradley University student-athletes today with the announcement that he earned a spot on the ESPN the Magazine Academic All-America first team, as determined by the College Sports Information Directors of America.
Reedy becomes the third student-athlete in school history to earn first-team Academic All-America honors from CoSIDA, and following up on his second-team award in 2006, Reedy becomes just the sixth student-athlete to repeat as a national scholar-athlete, as awarded by CoSIDA or the respective sport's coaching organization. Women's basketball player Judy Burns was a first-team CoSIDA Academic All-American in 1983 and baseball player Brad Canada was the second first-team selection from Bradley in 2005. Canada, runner Mary Ellen Hill-Shupbach and soccer players Chris Dunsheath, Dan Goldstein and Dan Thorstenson are Bradley's previous two-time national scholar-athletes.
A fifth-year senior, Reedy boasts a 3.97 cumulative grade point average while holding a perfect 4.0 GPA in his major of mechanical engineering. He presented his senior project, “Design of a Gas Transfer System, to the Los Alamos National Laboratory last spring. Reedy was a 2006 second-team ESPN the Magazine Academic All-American and one of 20 candidates for the inaugural Lowe's Senior CLASS Award in Men's Soccer this fall. He is a three-time recipient of the Missouri Valley Conference Commissioner's Academic Excellence Award (2006, 2007) as well as a the 2007 MVC President's Council Academic Award.
Reedy has appeared in 16 games this season for the Braves, while his 63 career games played are the most among Bradley's active defensive players. He has helped the Braves to three straight Missouri Valley Conference regular-season championships, although he was unable to play during this past weekend's State Farm MVC Tournament due to a bout with bronchitis.
The Braves won their first-ever MVC Tournament championship by blanking Eastern Illinois (2-0) in the semifinals and #7 Creighton (1-0) in Sunday's final at Morrison Stadium in Omaha. As The Valley's automatic qualifier, Bradley will play in its fourth NCAA Tournament (2000, 2002 and 2005) and will learn its first-round opponent and site during this afternoon's NCAA Tournament Selection Show on ESPNews between 4:30 and 5 o'clock.
