UNCG’s Wild Named Academic All American Team Member of the Year
CSC Announces Academic All-America and Team Members of the Year
AUSTIN, Texas – The UNC Greensboro (UNCG) goalkeeper Niclas Wild claimed Division I Men’s Soccer Academic All-American Team Member of the Year from the College Sports Communicators (CSC) earlier today as one of two members of the Spartans honored by the organization. Fifth-year teammate Marco Milanese also collected Division I Academic All-American Second Team honors.
Wild and Milanese are the sixth and seventh men’s soccer All-Americans in UNCG history. The most recent was Noah DeAngelo in 2015, earning first team honors. Wild is the third first teamer and Milanese is the second in program history. In UNCG history, there are now a total of 32 Academic All-Americans.
Wild, a junior from Berlin, Germany, is one of eight honorees that have collected a 4.0 grade point average (GPA) over their careers. The economics major finished the fall with 0.93 goals against average, good for second in the Southern Conference (SoCon). The junior posted a career-best 45 saves in 2022, totaling five shutouts for a total of 18 over his career as a Spartan. Wild was the 2022 SoCon Goalkeeper of the Year and first team member. This was Wild’s second consecutive year as the league’s top goalkeeper, accomplishing the honor in back-to-back years for only the second time in the conference’s history. Wild also claimed the SoCon’s Pinnacle Award, which is awarded to the team member of the SoCon champion with the highest GPA. The junior collects the Academic All-American Team Member of the Year and first team honors for Division I after earning all-district honors from the College Sports Communicators in November.
Milanese, a finance major, has collected a cumulative 3.97 GPA and adds to his all-district honors he earned from the CSC in November. The fifth-year defender collected All-SoCon First Team honors this season and earned Defensive Player of the Week honors from the league earlier this season. His first team honors repeat his 2021 effort where he earned his first All-SoCon First Team award. Milanese started 18 of 19 contests for the Spartans this year and contributed one goal and two assists from the back line. Milanese anchored the Spartans’ back line that contributed to six shutouts in 2022 including two shutouts against teams that qualified for the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship.
Four Spartans collected academic awards from the CSC in 2022. Ethan Conley and Basile Marc also collected all-district honors from the CSC along with Milanese and Wild last month. Milanese and Wild represent two of the three SoCon student-athletes on the CSC’s Division I Academic All-American team.
To be eligible, nominated student-athletes must be a starter or important reserve with a minimum 3.50 cumulative grade-point average in her second year at the current institution and must have played in at least 50 percent of the team’s games. All honorees are selected by a committee from the CSC who honors student-athletes from all three NCAA Divisions and the NAIA.
UNCG finished 2022 with a 13-2-6 overall record and a 4-0-1 record in SoCon play. The record is the Spartans’ best finish in program history. The Spartans claimed the 2022 SoCon Regular Season and Tournament Championships and earned the 12-seed in the NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Championship. UNCG defeated Ohio State in the second round in a penalty shootout after earning a 1-1 draw through 110 minutes and repeated the effort in the third round matchup at Stanford for the program’s first-ever appearance in the quarterfinals. UNCG earned the right to host Indiana in the quarterfinals for the first time in school history last Saturday.
College Sports Communicators (CSC) was founded in 1957 and is a 3,200+ member national association for strategic, creative and digital communicators across intercollegiate athletics in the United States and Canada. The current name of the organization was adopted following a membership-wide vote on Aug. 31, 2022.
From its founding in 1957 until the 2022 name change, the organization was known as College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).
The name change signaled a major step in a larger strategic plan to highlight the association’s evolution and expansion. The move better aligns with the association’s membership makeup and further positions the organization to support and advocate for its members who serve in the communications, digital and creative college sports industry, regardless of position or title.
The organization, which celebrated its 65th year during the 2021-22 academic year, is the second oldest management association in all of intercollegiate athletics. College Sports Communicators became an affiliated partner with NACDA (National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics) in December of 2008.
Courtesy of Denise Archetto
Assistant Athletic Director For Strategic Communications
UNC Greensboro