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| Ashton Gronewold |
Ashton Gronewold was named Thursday to a pair of All-America teams for his play during the 2007 season, making him the first player in the 115-year history of the university's football program to earn All-America honors in three different seasons.
Gronewold, who was selected earlier this week to participate in next month's Valero Cactus Bowl -- a Division II all-star game -- was named to the Associated Press Little All-America first team and to the Daktronics Division II second team after another record-breaking season at UMR. He earned both awards as an all-purpose back.
A regional finalist for the 2007 Harlon Hill Award, Gronewold currently ranks third in NCAA Division II in all-purpose yards as he finished with a school record 2,250 for the year, thanks in large part to his 87 receptions for 1,009 yards and his average of 28 yards per kickoff return as he had 953 yards in that category.
Gronewold was named as the Great Lakes Football Conference's receiver of the year for the second straight season, but was beaten out in the voting for the league's top offensive player by Central State running back Derrick Moss, the GLFC's rushing leader with 1,296 yards.
During the season, he broke the NCAA single-game record with 295 yards in kickoff returns and became the seventh player in Division II history to return two kickoffs for a touchdown in the same game when he brought two scores back for scores against Tiffin.
Gronewold is the holder of nearly every receiving, kickoff return and all-purpose yardage records in school history. He had totals of 278 catches, 3,708 yards and 53 touchdowns. His 58 career touchdowns also included five returns for scores. He also had totals of 1,828 kickoff return yards and 5,992 all-purpose yards which were both UMR records.
Prior to this season, Gronewold had earned post-season All-America honors from Football Gazette in each of the last two seasons and from D2Football.com and the Associated Press in 2006.
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