PORTLAND, Ore. - A total of 38 student-athletes – including 13 from first-year GNAC member Azusa Pacific University - have been named to the 2012 Great Northwest Athletic Conference Academic all-conference football team.

Western Oregon’s Brian Walton, a criminal justice major from Fruitland, Idaho, has the best GPA of the all-conference selectees with a 3.88 average.  Walton is one of 12 repeaters on the academic team, including 11 from last year and one – WOU’s Sherman Vercher – from 2010.

Vercher is one of seven players who earned all-academic honors for the third time.  Other three-time honorees included Joey Tivnan and Ryan Robertson of Central Washington; Cameron Greene of Dixie State; Bo Palmer of Simon Fraser, and Kelly Morgan and Michael Akins of Western Oregon.