Marshall University quarterback Chad Pennington, a 1999 Heisman Trophy finalist, and Illinois Wesleyan basketball player Korey Coon have been chosen the Team Members of the Year for the 1999-00 GTE Academic All-America Teams.

The selections for GTE's

highest honors for all sports were announced after voting by a committee of the College Sports Information Directors of America.

Pennington, a draft choice of the New York Jets, is the recipient in the university division (Division I) and Coon is the winner in the college division (Divisions II and III).

Pennington was a two-time GTE Academic All-America team member who earned his degree from Marshall in broadcast journalism. He was the New York Jets' first-round selection (18th pick overall) and the first quarterback chosen in the 2000 NFL draft. In his senior season at Marshall, he led the Thundering Herd to a 13-0 record and a victory in the Motor City

Bowl, finishing the season with 275 completions in 405 attempts (68 percent) for 3,799 yards and 37 touchdowns.

Coon averaged 22 points per game last sea

son and was a first-team all-American, winning the 2000 Josten's Trophy, given to the outstanding student-athlete in Division III basketball. He was a three-time first-team all-Collegiate Conference of Illinois and Wisconsin player and helped the Titans win the 1997 Division III national championship. Coon graduated with a double major in risk management and history.

Nominees for the GTE Academic All-America Team must be varsity starters or key reserves and maintain a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.200 (4.000 scale). Each academic year, a GTE Academic All-America Team Member of the Year is named in each of 10 programs (football, volleyball, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's fall at-large and men's and women's spring at-large) in the university and college divisions.

Pennington and Coon were chosen from among those 20 finalists in 1999-00.

Program name change

Beginning this fall, the GTE program will be known as the Verizon Academic All-America program as a result of the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic to create Verizon Communications.

Verizon Communications is one of the world's leading providers of communications services. Verizon companies are the largest providers of wireline and wireless communications in the United States, with 95 million access lines and 25 million wireless customers. A Fortune 10 company with more than 260,000 employees and approximately $60 billion in 1999 revenues, Verizon's global presence extends to 40 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Pacific.

Previous Team Members of the Year

* First year of present format, which honors one winner in each (college and university) division.