Finn Becomes Michigan's First Three-Time First Team Academic All-American
6/21/2018 12:00:00 PM | Women's Track & Field, Academic Success Program
• Michigan Academic All-Americans
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Achieving a feat unrivaled in University of Michigan athletics history, graduate student Erin Finn was for the third consecutive year named to the Google Cloud Academic All-America First Team for women's track and field/cross country, the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) announced Thursday (June 21).
Finn, a graduate student from nearby West Bloomfield, Michigan, pursuing a Master's of Public Health in epidemiology, is the first student-athlete in Michigan athletics history -- among all sports for both genders -- to earn three First Team Academic All-America distinctions in a career.
Finn, who was the Academic All-American of the Year for track and field/cross country, joins fellow runner Sue Schroeder (1984-86) and basketball's Diane Dietz (1980-82) as the only women in school history to earn three Academic All-America honors, regardless of team.
On the combined strength of her record-breaking and Big Ten title-winning showings during the track and field season, and a cumulative grade-point average above 4.00 as a graduate student in the School of Public Health, Finn was selected in a vote by CoSIDA members from among the Academic All-District honorees announced last month.
Finn's honor marks the eighth time in the past nine years that U-M has had at least one honoree named to the first, second or third team, and she has continued to raise the bar of excellence set both in competition and in the classroom.
For her combination of academic and athletic prowess, she was honored as one of eight finalists for the prestigious Amateur Athletics Union (AAU) James E. Sullivan award and was awarded the Big Ten Medal of Honor from among all Michigan female student-athletes.
In the classroom she has posted a sterling 4.18 grade-point average in her graduate studies, improving the near-perfect GPA she carried throughout her undergraduate biochemistry career.
In competition, Finn took to the track for Michigan during both the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons in 2017-18, setting a new school record, winning a conference title and posting numerous national-level performances along the way.
Indoors she broke her own school record at the 3,000-meter distance, clocking 8:58.69 for the fastest time run in that event on Michigan soil.
Outdoors she clocked a 15:33.15 over 5,000 meters that ranked her No. 10 nationally and won the Big Ten title over 10,000 meters in 32:45.51 that ranked No. 17 in the country. The conference win pushed Finn to 10 career Big Ten individual titles, the most in the combined history of Michigan women's track and field and cross country.
Injury cut short both her indoor and outdoor seasons, preventing her from making runs at adding to her nine career All-America honors.
Players Mentioned
