Buzzards Bay, Mass. --  Massachusetts Maritime senior right offensive tackle John Moriarty has been named as one of 170 semifinalists from across all levels of both NCAA and NAIA play for the 2013 National Football Foundation William V. Campbell Trophy, which recognizes an individual as the absolute best scholar-athlete in the nation, and he is also a candidate for one of 16 2013 National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Awards that will be presented in December.

 

A native of Wilmington, Mass. and a graduate of Wilmington High School, Moriarty is a two-year starter for Head Coach Jeremy Cameron's Buccaneers, as he is part of an offensive line unit that currently ranks second nationally in NCAA Division III in total offense at 587.3 yards per game.  Moriarty sports a 3.827 cumulative grade point average as a Facilities Engineering major at the Academy, as he earned spots on the New England Football Conference and Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference All-Academic squads last season and has been named to the Massachusetts Maritime Athletic Director's Honor Roll on two occasions during his career.

 

The Campbell Trophy, named in honor of Bill Campbell, the chairman of Intuit and former player and head coach at Columbia University, will be presented on Tuesday, December 10^th at the 56^th Annual National Football Foundation Annual Awards Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.  The Campbell Trophy recipient will be one of the final 16 NFF Scholar-Athlete Award winners, as each of those 16 individuals will receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship.  In addition to a 25-pound bronze trophy, the Campbell Trophy recipient will also receive an additional $7,000 in scholarship monies, raising the final total to $25,000 for the winner.

 

"This is a great honor for John and a testament to his hard work both on and off the field," Cameron says of Moriarty's recognition.  "He demands excellence from himself and his teammates in every athletic and academic aspect of our program, and he is a leader in our campus community."

 

A President's List scholar, Moriarty helped Massachusetts Maritime set 17 new school records during the 2012 season, as the Buccaneers ranked sixth nationally in Division III with 520.7 yards per game last fall.  Cameron's squad is off to a 2-1 start this season and is averaging 46.3 points per game, including a school record 63-point performance against Worcester State last Saturday that followed a 52-point, 752-yard outburst in the Admiral's Cup clash at Maine Maritime on September 21^st. 

 

Moriarty is one of 39 student-athletes named to the semi-final list from a Division III member institution, and he joins WPI's Tim Grupp as the only New England honorees.  The 170 Campbell Trophy semi-finalists have an average GPA of 3.60, with 39 nominees amassing a 3.80 or better cumulative GPA.

 

The National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete Awards, presented by Fidelity Investments, were launched in 1959 and became the first initiative in history to award postgraduate scholarships based on both a player's academic and athletic accomplishments.  The Campbell Trophy, which was first awarded in 1990, has previously honored two Rhodes Scholars, a Rhodes Scholar finalist, two Heisman Trophy winners and five first round National Football League draft picks, as past recipients of the award include Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manningof the University of Tennessee, former University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow and last year's winner, offensive lineman Barrett Jones of the national champion University of Alabama.