Piper, Mork Earn Academic All-America Honors

East Lansing, Mich. -- Michigan State swimming teammates Scott Piper (Naperville, Illinois) and Nehemiah Mork (Midland, Mich.) have been announced as Academic All-Americans, as awarded by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

Piper is one of 11 repeat Academic All-America selection, as he was a First Team pick in 2019. Mork is a first-time selection, and earned a spot on the second team. Piper was recently named the recipient of MSU's Dr. James Feurig Achievement and Service Award, while the duo shared the MSU President's Award with the highest GPA among graduating senior student-athletes.

Piper is the only Big Ten athlete on the First Team, while Mork makes it two MSU representatives among three Big Ten selections in on the first two teams.

Mork has experienced immense success at Michigan State University. The three-time Academic All-Big Ten honoree and Big Ten Distinguished Scholar graduated with a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA while majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in computer science. He made the Dean's List every semester at MSU and was a two-time winner of the program's scholar-athlete award. A four-time varsity letterwinner, Mork holds school records in both the 200 and 400 freestyle relay. He was named the program's Big Ten Sportsmanship Award winner and earned Michigan State Student-Athlete of the Month honors in January 2020.

Additionally, Mork has showcased tremendous commitment to the community by participating in several events, including with the Salvation Army Toy Shop, Chuck-A-Puck, All-Children Exercise Simultaneously (ACES) Day, City Rescue Mission, Operation Christmas Child, Athletes in Action, Teams for Toys, Women's Shelter, Youth Haven and the Student-Athlete Food Drive. Recently, he was profiled in the Detroit Free Press for his efforts to help in his hometown of Midland, Michigan after dams broke and the area was ravaged by devastating floods.

Piper is also a three-time Big Ten Distinguished Scholar and three-time Academic All-Big Ten recipient, and graduated with a perfect 4.0 cumulative GPA while majoring in biosystem engineering. In the classroom, Piper was the first student-athlete in program and school history to be awarded the Wayne Duke Postgraduate Scholarship from the Big Ten Conference, and also earned a B1G Postgraduate Scholarship. He is now a two-time CoSIDA First-Team Academic All-American and spent numerous semesters on Dr. Jonathan Hardy's undergraduate research team in the microbiology department at Michigan State and also interned with Orchid Orthopedic Solutions in Holt.

A multi-event swimmer for the Spartans, Piper competed in the individual medley, backstroke, and butterfly events. He holds the varsity records in the 200 butterfly, 1:45.35, and the 200 IM, 1:46.42, both of which he set in 2019. Piper also qualified for the 2020 Olympic Trials at the 2018 USA Winter Nationals in 200 IM.

A leader on campus, Piper is the Vice President of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) and serves as the SAAC representative on the Associated Students of Michigan State University (ASMSU) board. He is also an Honors College Dean's Ambassador. In addition, he was heavily involved with a variety of community outreach events, including Salvation Army, the Student-Athlete Food Drive, and shaving his head to raise money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation (for children's cancer) alongside other student-athletes.

Mork will be pursuing his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.  Piper is off to Stanford for an advanced degree in biomedical engineering.

No less than 31 of 46 members of the 2019-2020 CoSIDA Academic All-America® Division I Men's At-Large teams have at least a 3.90 GPA, with 20 student-athletes maintaining a 4.00 GPA as either undergraduate or graduate students. The 16 members of the first team (which was expanded due to ties in the voting) have an average GPA of 3.96. The At-Large program encompasses the sports of fencing, golf, gymnastics, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, skiing, swimming and diving, tennis, water polo for both men and women; bowling, crew and field hockey for women; and volleyball and wrestling for men.

For more information regarding the CoSIDA Academic All-America® program, visit https://academicallamerica.com/. A complete list of the Academic All-America At-Large selections can be downloaded here.

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