IRVING, Texas -- Cornell senior safety
Jelani Taylor was named
1-of-12 finalists for the 2019 William V. Campbell Trophy®, presented by Mazda, by The National Football Foundation (NFF) & College Football Hall of Fame Wednesday.
The award annually recognizes an individual as the absolute best football scholar-athlete in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership.
Taylor and each of the other 11 finalists will receive an $18,000 postgraduate scholarship as a member of the 2019 NFF National Scholar-Athlete Class, presented by Fidelity Investments, and they will travel to New York City for the 62nd NFF Annual Awards Dinner on Tuesday, Dec. 10, where their accomplishments will be highlighted in front of one of the most powerful audiences in all of sports. At the event, one member of the class will be declared the winner of the 30th William V. Campbell Trophy
®, presented by Mazda, and have his postgraduate scholarship increased to $25,000. The event will take place at the New York Hilton Midtown and will be streamed live, with specific broadcast information to be announced at a later date.
On the field, Taylor is a three-year starter at safety for the Big Red. In 33 games, he boasts 153 tackles, including 4.5 for a loss and 2.0 sacks, 26 pass breakups, a pair of forced fumbles and two interceptions.
The Beecher, Mich., native was Cornell’s leading tackler (72) in 2018, while also breaking up a team-high nine passes. The senior co-captain again leads the Big Red with 42 tackles and seven pass breakups in 2019.
In the classroom, Taylor maintains a 3.96 grade-point average (GPA) in Hotel Administration. A 2018 Academic All-Ivy and Google Cloud Academic All-District pick, Taylor has tutored and advised students in financial accounting, quantitative analysis and anthropology of money. He was also a summer intern in the office of Cornell’s Executive Vice President & CFO.
Earlier this month, Taylor was
named the 2019 recipient of one of Cornell University’s highest honors, the Richie Moran Award, which is presented annually to a senior student-athlete who has distinguished himself/herself through “academics, athletics and ambassadorship.” A member of the 400 Club for student-athletes with a semester GPA of 4.0, Taylor was selected to receive the PSP Excellence Award and is a five-time Dean’s List honoree.
Taylor is an inspiration to others after overcoming dire circumstances while growing up outside of Flint, Michigan, which included a point while he was in high school that he and his family were homeless.
Taylor is the second Cornellian (
Jeff Matthews in 2013) and the 17th Ivy Leaguer to be named a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy
®. No Ivy Leaguer, nor any student-athlete from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), has taken home the award, which was first presented in 1990.
Nominated by their schools, which are limited to one nominee each, candidates for the Campbell Trophy®, presented by Mazda, must be a senior or graduate student in their final year of playing eligibility, have a GPA of at least 3.2 on a 4.0 scale, have outstanding football ability as a first team player or significant contributor and have demonstrated strong leadership and citizenship.
The NFF National Scholar-Athlete program, launched in 1959, became the first initiative in history to award postgraduate scholarships for combined athletic, academic and leadership abilities. Including the 2019 recipients, the NFF has honored 866 individuals with National Scholar-Athlete Awards. The honorees have used the financial support to earn more than 150 medical degrees, 100 law degrees, 80 MBAs and 43 PhDs. Continuing their excellence on the field, more than 200 recipients have played in the NFL with an average career of six seasons or double the length of a typical NFL player. Past recipients also include 13 Rhodes Scholars.
First awarded in 1990, The William V. Campbell Trophy®, presented by Mazda, is named in honor of the late Bill Campbell, the former CEO and chairman of Intuit, a 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 a $7,000 increase in postgraduate funds for a total scholarship of $25,000. A total distribution of $223,000 in scholarships will be awarded Dec. 10, pushing the program's all-time distributions to more than $11.7 million.
The 12 finalists were selected from a nationwide pool of
185 exceptional semifinalists from among all NCAA divisions and the NAIA, including Ivies
Nicholas Allsop of Brown,
Arman Samouk of Columbia,
Jack Traynor of Dartmouth,
Brogan McPartland of Harvard,
Greg Begnoche of Penn,
Andrew Griffin of Princeton and
Sterling Strother of Yale.