STATE COLLEGE, Pa.; May 1, 2001 -- Former Penn State NCAA wrestling champion Jim Martin is among 25 finalists nominated for induction into the Verizon Academic All-America Hall of Fame.?

The finalists were chosen from a group of more than 100 nominees and were selected by a 90-member voting board representing the 1,800 members of the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

The four finalists who will make up the 14th annual class will be inducted June 26 in ceremonies at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York.

Verizon (formerly GTE), in cooperation with CoSIDA, established the Hall of Fame in 1988 to honor former college student-athletes who have excelled in their professions and made substantial contributions to their communities. To be eligible, a candidate had to be an Academic All-America Team member who graduated at least 10 years ago with a minimum overall grade point average of 3.00 on a 4.00 scale.

Two former Nittany Lions have already been inducted into the Hall, football and wrestling All-American Dave Joyner (1991) and quarterback Todd Blackledge (1997).

A four-time All-American, Martin was the 1988 NCAA wrestling champion at 126 pounds and was the runner-up in 1987. Martin leads the school career charts in victories (155), dual meet wins (73) and NCAA wins (18), compiling a spectacular 155-9-4 (93.4) career record.

Martin graduated from Penn State with a 3.95 grade point average in pre-medicine and was the Academic All-American of the Year for men's at-large sports in 1988 and for all men's programs in 1989. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa and recipient of an NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship, Martin graduated from Penn State's Hershey Medical School in 1993. He was an orthopaedic resident at the University of Iowa from 1993-98 and then served an orthopaedic sports medicine fellowship at the American Sports Medicine Institute in Birmingham, Ala., working with Dr. James Andrews, one of the nation's top orthopaedic surgeons.

Martin is an orthopaedic surgeon in State College.

His father, Dr. Tom Martin, is a team physician with Penn State Orthopedics on the University Park campus. A

mong the other finalists for induction this year are: former NFL standouts Cris Collinsworth and Mark Kelso; former Duke All-America basketball player Mike Gminski and Kim Mulkey-Robertson, a standout basketball player at Louisiana Tech.