June 18, 2009

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Two South Carolina track and field athletes were named to the ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Thursday. Senior Curt McGill and junior Elliott Haynie both earned third team honors as the Gamecocks lead the SEC with two selections.

Haynie (Atlanta, Ga.), who earned first team Academic All-District honors for the second consecutive year, put together a strong first year as a Gamecock after transferring from Gardner-Webb. In his short time in Columbia, Haynie holds the South Carolina outdoor record in the pole vault at 17-10 ½, the seventh best mark in the nation this season. He was a silver medalist at the SEC Outdoor Championships and competed at last week’s NCAA Outdoor Championships. A four-time Atlantic Sun champion at Gardner-Webb, he also holds the Atlantic Sun Conference record in the heptathlon with 4,645 points.

McGill (Spartanburg, S.C.) has consistently been one of the top multi-event athletes since joining the Gamecocks. A five-time scorer at the SEC Indoor and Outdoor Championships, he holds a career-best 5,292 points in the heptathlon set at the 2009 SEC Indoor Championships where he won three events and placed fourth overall. Recently, McGill was one of 45 out of 500 applicants accepted into Duke Medical School after posting a 3.88 GPA in exercise science during his four years at South Carolina.

Dan McKenzie was South Carolina’s last ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America selection after earning second team honors in 2007.