The Hillsdale College football program has a long and proud history of chasing academic and athletic excellence, without compromising either category.
It's no surprise, then, that the Chargers did well with an award designed to honor that pursuit.
Three Hillsdale College football players, seniors Alexander Anschutz and Konnor Maloney, as well as junior Cole Johnson, earned Academic All-District honors from the College Sports Information Director's Assocation, the group announced on Wednesday, part of an elite group of 24 student-athletes that were selected from the teams that make up the four conferences in Super Region 1 at the Division II level.
The program, which has been around since 1952, recognizes the nation's top student-athletes for their combined performances on the field or court and in the classroom. The CoSIDA Academic All-America® program separately recognizes football honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA.
Hillsdale's three honorees are tied for the most by a single team from Super Region 1 with Slippery Rock University and Bentley University, and the Chargers are one of just two Great Midwest Athletic Conference teams with players recognized for the honor.
All three players have been key contributors for the Chargers on the field for multiple seasons.
Anschutz, a team captain in the 2020-21 school year, is a three-year starter who's earned back-to-back second-team All-G-MAC honors as Hillsdale's STAR, a safety/linebacker hybrid position. He led the team in tackles for loss and pass breakups in 2019, and has 179 career tackles, 6.5 tackles for loss, four interceptions and 19 pass breakups.
Maloney, meanwhile, has been one of the top receiving threats in Hillsdale College history in three seasons as a starter, earning second-team All-G-MAC honors in 2019 after leading the conference in yards per catch. He's one of just seven Charger receivers to go over 2,000 yards for his career, and is 10th all-time in career receptions with 121.
Johnson has anchored the offensive line as a starter for each of the past two seasons, earning honorable mention All-G-MAC in 2019 as a sophomore and first-team All-G-MAC honors this spring. He was the top player on a Hillsdale line that helped pave the way for 181 rushing yards in the spring, the second-most in the G-MAC.
All three are also extremely impressive off the field. Anschutz, a Biochemistry major, earned the President's Scholar-Athlete Award at Hillsdale College for maintaining a GPA of 3.8 or higher in both 2020 and 2021, and presented a semester-long research project in the spring of 2020 highlighting key points of the mechanisms involved in the human dopamine transporter in the brain. He's currently on track to graduate with high honors from Hillsdale College.
Maloney is active on the Hillsdale Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, helping plan and set up several charitable endeavors, and has made the Dean's list at Hillsdale College seven semesters in a row. A member of the Tri Beta Biological Honorary, he also studied at an internship at the Michigan State University Institute for Quantitative Health Sciences and Engineering, assisting in and earning credit for the research for a scientific paper published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. An Exercise Science major, Maloney is on track to graduate with honors at Hillsdale College.
Last but not least, Johnson, a redshirt junior, also earned the President's Scholar-Athlete Award at Hillsdale College for 2021, and was named Outstanding Senior by the Hillsdale Financial Management department this spring. He's made the dean's list all eight semesters at Hillsdale and earned a 4.0 GPA in each of the last two semesters. A Financial Management major, Johnson is on track to graduate with high honrs from Hillsdale College.
All three of Hillsdale's first-team Academic All-District® honorees in football advance to the CoSIDA Academic All-America® ballot. First- and second-team Academic All-America® honorees will be announced in early July.
All three athletes are also aiming to return in the fall, to take advantage of the extra year of eligbility granted by the NCAA after the cancellation of the Fall 2020 Division II football championships due to Covid-19, and will play out their final season for the Chargers beginning in August.
Photos by Anthony Lupi and Jaycie Burger