Cowboy track receives academic honors

Friday, July 14, 2006

Oklahoma State University's men's track team was named a Division I All-Academic team by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. Also, three Cowboy runners were named individual all-academic performers.

The Cowboys had a 3.143 team grade point average and were one of just 22 teams selected by the USTFCCCA. OSU was the only school from the Big 12 Conference to receive the honor.

Cowboy runners David Jankowski, Ryan Vail and David Pomies all received individual honors for their performance in the classroom. Vail, a redshirt freshman from Gresham, Oregon, completed the year with a 3.62 GPA. Jankowski, a sophomore from Idaho Falls, Idaho, had a 3.57 GPA, while Pomies, a junior from Lyon, France, had a 3.40 GPA.

"This is outstanding for this program," Cowboy coach Dick Weis said. "Our kids do a fantastic job in the classroom and they deserve to be rewarded for it. We make it a point to recruit these kinds of young men and we have a policy in this program that the No. 1 reason that they are here is to get a degree and the second reason they are here is to run. Our kids buy into that idea and they have done great things on the track as well as in the classroom."