Syracuse football senior defensive end Kingsley Jonathan is on the pre-season watch list for a major award focused on community service.
Syracuse football stars Andre Cisco and Andre Szmyt in recent days got named to pre-season watch lists for major awards, but the honor that senior defensive end Kingsley Jonathan is now in the running for takes on an even greater kind of importance.
The 6-foot-3, 264-pound Jonathan, who hails from Baltimore, is on the pre-season watch list for the 2020 Wuerffel Trophy, a major college football award doled out annually to the player “who best combines exemplary community service with athletic and academic achievement,” according to a cuse.com announcement.
Jonathan is one of 114 players on the pre-season watch list for this honor, including nearly a dozen guys from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The award is named after Danny Wuerffel, a star quarterback who won the 1996 Heisman Trophy while attending the University of Florida.
Per a press release from the Wuerffel Trophy, officials will announce the award’s semi-finalists on Nov. 3, its finalists on Nov. 23, and the 2020 recipient on Dec. 8 in New York City.
Jonathan, an information and technology major at Syracuse University’s iSchool, was selected to the All-ACC academic team last season, according to the cuse.com statement. He is also a member of the Syracuse Student-Athlete Advisory Committee board.
On the field, Jonathan has suited up in 33 career games, with two starts. He boasts 49 total tackles, 10.5 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks. In the 2019 stanza, Jonathan recorded 24 tackles, three tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks.
Off the field, cuse.com says that his community involvement includes participating in SU’s 2019 OttoTHON Dance Marathon, an event that raised more than $200,000 for the Upstate Golisano Children’s Hospital in Syracuse.
Jonathan has also volunteered for the annual Boys & Girls Club field day at Manley Field House, and last year he founded a program called “Hoodie Drive” in which Jonathan collects hooded sweatshirts for less-fortunate members of the Central New York community during the winter.