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A Gridiron Great
Football standout Kevin Yurkerwich ’06 is named an Academic All-American
By Kathryn Beaumont

Kevin yurkerwich ’06 could have been a top-ranked skier. But as a senior in high school, he turned his attention toward his other athletic love, football. For MIT, it’s a good thing he switched. Since he walked onto the MIT playing fields in fall 2002, Yurkerwich has been a defensive standout, his accolades culminating in his designation as a 2004 Academic All-American—the highest collegiate honor a student-athlete can receive, and one that gives equal weight to academic and athletic performance. It’s particularly fitting since Yurkerwich, a chemistry major, will graduate this spring after only three years at the Institute.

To graduate early, Yurkerwich took as many as 87 units a semester—the equivalent of seven and a quarter standard classes. He managed his study time by doing lab research from 6:00 a.m. until classes began at 10:00 a.m. After class, football offered him “an escape from the daily grind of problem sets and exams,” he says.

Football may have been an escape, but Yurkerwich, a defensive end and a long-snapper, was as committed to his sport as to his studies. His teammates named him most valuable player. He also ranked first in tackles in the New England Football Conference, with 12 tackles per game, and third at MIT in career sacks (16.5).

In his 27 years at MIT, football coach Dwight Smith has coached 24 Academic All-Americans. He ranks Yurkerwich with the best of the best. “Even though he was always taking heavier loads, he could refocus and get into football,” Smith says.

Yurkerwich will attend graduate school next year to pursue a doctorate in chemistry. Already, he has been accepted at schools where he could potentially walk on as a long-snapper. Still, he knows that what he had at MIT was special: Yurkerwich’s lab partner is teammate Matt Ramirez ’06, the kicker and punter. “Not only do we spend a million hours in lab together,” Yurkerwich says, “but I spend a million hours long-snapping to him. You don’t see that at any other school.”