Stergios Mentesidis is the strong, silent type. In the classroom and on the soccer field, Mentesidis is all business, all the time.

His performance in the classroom has brought him many accolades and scholarships at Bard - but his play on the soccer field hadn't really brought him any recognition at all.

Until now.

A couple of weeks ago, he became the first Bard student-athlete to ever earn Academic All-District honors, and on Tuesday, he became Bard's first-ever national Academic All-American, earning third team honors from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) and Capital One.

CoSIDA has been naming these teams since the 1950s, and Capital One recently became the sponsor of the program. The qualifications are simple yet wide-ranging: Nominees must be excellent students and "significant contributors" on the field of play. With his 3.94 GPA and a double major in Economics and Math, Mentesidis was obviously an excellent candidate.

On the field, he started 66 games for Bard over four seasons, including playing every minute of the last 57 games in a row.

Student-athletes are nominated by CoSIDA members, then voting occurs to create the All-District teams, which are built geographically in NCAA Div. I, II and III, and in a small college division. Those who obtain First Team All-District status, like Mentesidis, move onto the national Academic All-America ballot; these national awards (First Team, Second Team, Third Team for each sport category) were voted upon by Academic All-America Committee members and the current CoSIDA Board of Directors.

Among the Div. III winners, only three were students at schools from the Liberty League. Two players from RPI earned First Team and Third Team recognition, along with Mentesidis.

Click here to see the complete release about the Div. III men's and women's soccer Academic All-American teams.