ITHACA, N.Y. -- One of the most prestigious senior awards at Cornell, the 31st annual Richie Moran award, was presented to football player Jelani Taylor at the Athletics Hall of Fame Dinner on Oct. 5.

The award, which was instituted in 1989, is presented to a senior student-athlete who has distinguished himself/herself through "academics, athletics and ambassadorship." Like each of the previous winners, the award's description seemed to be written for Taylor.

On the field, Taylor has been a force as a three-year starter at safety. The team's leading tackler in 2019, Taylor ranks second in the Ivy League with 8.0 stops per game and has added 1.5 tackles for a loss, an interception and four pass breakups. He was exceptional in last weekend's game at Harvard, posting a season-best 12 tackles, including a half-tackle for loss, along with an interception and three pass breakups. The 5-11, 195-pound native of Beecher, Mich., enters the weekend with 143 tackles, including 4.5 for a loss and 2.0 sacks, 22 pass breakups, a pair of forced fumbles and an interception in 32 games. The senior co-captain was a first-team Google Cloud Academic All-District pick as a junior after leading the team in tackles (72) and passes defended (nine). Twice he has broken up four passes in a game, one off a school record.

Aside from dominating on the field, Taylor has maintained a 3.94 grade point average in Hotel Administration. A five-time Dean's List member and 2018 Academic All-Ivy League pick, he tutored and advised students in Financial Accounting, Quantitative Analysis, and Anthropology of Money, serving student-athletes and multicultural students within the Hotel School with a goal to help them excel in their coursework. A member of the 400 Club for student-athletes with a semester GPA of 4.0, he was selected to receive the PSP Excellence Award and is a semifinalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, given to the top football scholar-athlete in the nation for his combined academic success, football performance and exemplary leadership. Taylor served as a summer intern in the office of Cornell's Executive Vice President and CFO.

A two-year member of the football team's Leadership Cabinet, he was chosen to represent Cornell at the Ivy League Football media day at ESPN.

The brainchild of Cornell alum Jay Spiegel in early 1989, the Richie Moran Award was first given that fall to women's soccer player Jennifer Smith '90. Spiegel's idea was to honor a scholar-athlete who also exhibited the type of Ivy League spirit Cornellians seek to emulate — that of not only excellence in scholarship and athletics, but also in service to the community. At the same time, Spiegel thought it was appropriate to name the award after someone who was a great example for these attributes.

"Only one person came to mind — Richie Moran," Spiegel said. The excellence of his teams was unquestioned, but one little known fact outside of the Athletic Department was that his players consistently had the highest grade point average among all of Cornell's teams. Richie's service to the greater community at Cornell, in Tompkins County, and around the globe was legendary. Who better to bear the name of a prestigious award to be given to one senior scholar-athlete?"