IRVING, TX-  Selected as the best and brightest from the college gridiron, the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame (NFF) proudly announced today the 167 semifinalists for the 2014 William V. Campbell Trophy®, presented by Fidelity Investments® and hosted at the New York Athletic Club. Senior linebacker Ethan Wilt (Altoona, PA/Altoona Area) was named one of those semifinalists. This is the second straight year that a member of the Eagles has been named a semifinalist with former player Jared Shope being named one last season.

The award recognizes an individual as the absolute best football scholar-athlete in the nation, and up to 16 of the candidates will be named recipients of a prestigious NFF National Scholar-Athlete Award, also presented by Fidelity Investments. Launched in 1959, the NFF National Scholar-Athlete program awards $18,000 scholarships that can be used for the honorees’ postgraduate educations. This year’s recipients will be announced Oct. 30, and one will be declared the winner of the Campbell Trophy Dec. 9 at the 57th NFF Annual Awards Dinner.

Named in honor of Bill Campbell, the chairman of Intuit, former player and head coach at Columbia University and the 2004 recipient of the NFF’s Gold Medal, the award comes with a 25-pound bronze trophy and increases the amount of the recipient’s grant by $7,000 for a total post-graduate scholarship of $25,000. A total distribution of $300,000 in scholarships will be awarded at the NFF Annual Awards Dinner, pushing the program’s all-time distributions to more than $10.7 million.

Wilt is averaging 13 tackles a game for the Eagles to lead the team. Overall, he has 39 tackles, one sack, and one pass breakup. His program of interest is politics with a secondary emphasis in history.