University of Utah gymnast Theresa Kulikowski and Kenyon College swimmer Ashley Rowatt have been named as Academic All-Americans of the Year by Verizon and the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Kulikowski, recently selected as the Women's At-Large Team Member of the Year for the second consecutive year, was honored in the university division. She is a 14-time all-American and three-time NCAA champion. She was voted the AAI Senior Gymnast of the Year by the nation's gymnastics coaches and holds school records for most career 10.0 scores (14) and most career victories (111).

Kulikowski boasts a perfect grade-point average and is the recipient of an NCAA postgraduate scholarship.

Utah Athletics Director Chris Hill said it has been an honor for him to have been associated with Kulikowski during her career as a student-athlete.

"As a fan of our gymnastics program, I was awed by her incredible athletics feats," Hill said. "As an educator, I was similarly impressed with her outstanding academic accomplishments. Few people have the talent, brains and drive to achieve perfection in any area of life, and she did so on the competitive floor and in the classroom, time and time again."

Kenyon's Rowatt was selected as the college division's Academic All-American of the Year. Selected as this year's college division Women's At-Large Team Member of the Year, Rowatt has won three individual national titles, two national relay titles and 13 all-America awards during her career. Rowatt was a four-year qualifier for the Division III Women's Swimming and Diving Championships and led Kenyon to three national titles and four North Coast Athletic Conference crowns.

Like Kulikowski, Rowatt also is the recipient of an NCAA postgraduate scholarship. She also recently was nominated for the NCAA Woman of Year award. Rowatt finished her collegiate career with a near-perfect GPA studying molecular biology.

"I'm extremely grateful to my professors, coaches and classmates at Kenyon for helping me reach my goals in the classroom and in the pool," Rowatt said. "The environment at Kenyon provided me with such a rich collegiate experience and the opportunity to thrive both academically and athletically."

The Academic All-America of the Year honor, which began in 1987-88, is awarded to the most outstanding student-athlete of the year and is chosen from the student-athletes who have been awarded Team Member of the Year honors. From more than 360,000 student-athletes in the nation, just 816 are selected as Academic All-America Team members each year. Twenty-four are selected as Team Members of the Year and two are named Academic All-Americans of the Year.

"With more than 10,000 student athletes being nominated for Academic All-America each year, and considering the number of athletes completing in intercollegiate sports, to reach the epitome of what it means to be a successful student-athlete and be selected as the best of the best is quite an amazing achievement," said Bentley College's Dick Lipe, Academic All-America chair at CoSIDA.

Founded by CoSIDA in 1952, the Academic All-America Teams program recognizes collegiate student-athletes for their outstanding achievements in the classroom and on the playing field. Over the past 50 years, the Academic All-America program has grown into one of the most recognized and prestigious collegiate scholar-athlete awards nationwide, honoring student-athletes from all NCAA championship sports. Nominees must be varsity starters or key reserves and maintain a cumulative GPA of at least 3.200 (4.000 scale).