Football team co-Captain Josh Bloom '95 yesterday was named one of 20 football finalists for the Annual National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics/Disney Scholar-Athlete Postgraduate Scholarships.
The 20 finalists were chosen from 58 nominees, all football players. An additional 15 finalists from other sports will be named in April.
The NACDA Blue Ribbon Committee, consisting of some of the top figures in the athletic world, will review the 35 finalists and select 10 winners who will each receive $5,000 toward their postgraduate studies.
Five of the scholarships will be awarded to football players, the other five from other sports.
The scholarships are funded by the Walt Disney Company.
"I'll be excited if I get it, it's really nice," Bloom said. "More scholarship money would be very welcome."
The winners will receive their awards at the NACDA's 30th Annual Convention, June 18-21, in Las Vegas, Nev.
To be nominated for the award, a student athlete is required to have a grade point average of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale, and must be named to the athletic all-American or all-Conference team in their sports.
Bloom, who sports a 3.28 GPA, is no stranger to scholar-athlete awards.
Last fall he was awarded an $18,000 scholarship for postgraduate study from the National Football Foundation and the College Hall of Fame.
Last spring he was the male recipient of the Class of 1948 Scholar-Athlete award for demonstrating the most outstanding athletic and academic achievement in the junior class.
Bloom, a history major modified with environmental studies, spent his junior winter term in Nairobi, Kenya on the Foreign Study Program in Environmental Studies.
Bloom is a brother in Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He works as the liaison for the Nathan Smith Society to the C. Everett Koop Institute. He also works in a biology lab on campus.
Bloom plans to take a year off from school next year, and hopes to begin medical school in Colorado in the fall of 1996.
"I'm probably going to work for a while and then hopefully, I'm exploring some options about going to play football in Europe for 6 months or so," Bloom said. "There's nothing definitive yet."
Bloom's achievements on the field are also numerous.
He was a three-year starter, two-time second-team All-Ivy, three-time Academic all-Ivy and a 1994 GRE/CoSIDA Academic All American.
