Kaiser wins Academic All-American of the Year

PERKINSTON — For the second time in three years, Mississippi Gulf Coast has the CSC Academic All-American of the Year for men in the College Division. Bulldogs golfer Chase Kaiser has been named the top member of the 11-person team for all two-year institutions, Canadian institutions and any United States four-year institutions not affiliated with the NCAA or NAIA. 

Kaiser, who is from Natchez, is the seventh Gulf Coast student-athlete to have won a spot on the College Sports Communicators Academic All-American squad since 2019. He joins another golfer, Jon Hopkins, who was named the top student-athlete in the Division in 2020.

"It's awesome," Kaiser said. "I had a really great year on the course, but also in the classroom. To win something like this, especially when it's something a guy like Jon Hopkins has won, it's exciting. He's a great Gulf Coast alum and doing big things at the next level."

College Sports Communicators, formerly known as CoSIDA, is the national organization for athletics communications professionals. The Academic All-American program was started in 1952. The College Division has At-Large category awarded for all sports played during the academic year.

Six other male MGCCC Student-Athletes earned Academic All-District honors: tennis' Paul Gayk (So., Muelheim an der Ruhr, Germany/Berufskolleg Lehnerstrasse); men's soccer's Ivan Gonzalez (So., Olive Branch/Olive Branch), Hyungjoon Lee (So., Suwon, South Korea/Dongbuk) and Ashton Taylor (So., Olive Branch/Center Hill); and football's Jonathan Harris (So., Hattiesburg/Petal) and Ishmael Naylor (So., DeKalb/Kemper County).

Kaiser compiled a 3.90 GPA in civil engineering at Gulf Coast, but he'll be swapping majors to finance when he heads to the University of North Alabama. He'll be playing on the Lions golf team, which competes in the NCAA Divisoin I ASUN Conference.

He balanced his efforts in the classroom with excellent results on the course. Kaiser tied the school record with five individual wins in a season, helping Gulf Coast smash the program record with 10 wins. The Bulldogs finished fifth at the NJCAA Division II Men's Golf Championship, and Kaiser earned First-Team NJCAA All-American honors by coming in tied for seventh.

He also earned a spot on the PING All-American First Team. Kaiser won the Hubert Tucker Award for the lowest scoring average in MACCC events this year. He also claimed the Tommy Snell Award by winning medalist at the MACCC Championship.

The demanding coursework of civil engineering sometimes created conflicts in his academic and athletic schedules, but Kaiser was able to excel in both. 

"It's something I've always done," he said. "Even in high school, I played other sports along with golf, and I was always able to make sure my grades were a priority. At Gulf Coast, with the schedule we had, Coach Brad (Thornton) was very accommodating if I had a lot of work to do or a test, I could get that done first. He'd give me a little more time to study and then it would be up to me to make sure I was getting my practice done."

For more information on MGCCC's 11 intercollegiate athletic teams, follow @MGCCCBulldogs on Twitter and MGCCCBulldogs on Facebook, and go to mgcccbulldogs.com.