Jack Raines Tabbed CoSIDA Academic All-American

MACON, Ga. – Mercer redshirt senior Jack Raines has been named to the 2019 Academic All-America First Team, as announced by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Monday afternoon.

Raines becomes just the second Mercer football player to receive Academic All-America honors, joining former Bear standout Tee Mitchell in 2015. He also joins a cast of 13 different Mercer student-athletes across all sports to be named Academic All-Americans – nine of whom were first teamers – and is the only Southern Conference player on this year's first team.

A former walk-on turned scholarship student-athlete, Raines emerged as one of the leaders defensively for the Bears in 2019 – starting all 12 games of the season at defensive end or outside linebacker. He recorded 53 tackles with 6.0 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks during his senior campaign, while also adding a forced fumble at No. 15 Furman in September.

The Tifton native was named to the President's List every semester at Mercer and proceeded to graduate with a 4.0 GPA with his undergraduate degree in finance and Spanish. He is set to continue his education in January, as he has been accepted into Columbia University's Master of Business Administration program.

CoSIDA began the distinguished Academic All-America® program in 1952, and since then has honored thousands of deserving student-athletes from numerous sports across all divisions with these elite Academic All-America® scholar-athlete honors.

To be eligible for Academic All-America team consideration, a student-athlete must be a varsity starter or key reserve, maintain a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.30 on a scale of 4.00, have reached sophomore athletic and academic status at his/her current institution and be nominated by his/her sports information director.

Mercer CoSIDA Academic All-America Honorees (*First Team)
Will Emerson, Men's Basketball (2004-05)*
Will Emerson, Men's Basketball (2005-06)*
Mike Armstrong, Baseball (2005-06)
Billy Burns, Baseball (2010-11)
Will Betts, Men's Soccer (2012-13)*
Derrick Workman, Baseball (2012-13)*
Derrick Workman, Baseball (2013-14)*
Michael Massi, Baseball (2013-14)*
Ashani Samuels, Men's Soccer (2014-15)
Natalie Shiver, Softball (2014-15)
Natalie Shiver, Softball (2015-16)
Tee Mitchell, Football (2015-16)*
Hunter Bening, Baseball (2016-17)
Charlie Madden, Baseball (2016-17)
Amanda Thompson, Women's Basketball (2018-19)*
Jack Raines, Football (2019-20)*

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Jack Raines Tabbed CoSIDA Academic All-American

Players Mentioned

Tee Mitchell

Jack Raines

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