LINK – ASHLAND UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL PAGE
LINK – ADAM SHAHEEN NFL.COM PROFILE PAGE
Former Ashland University All-American tight end Adam Shaheen caught his third National Football League touchdown pass for the Chicago Bears on Sunday (Dec. 10) in a 33-7 win at the Cincinnati Bengals.
In the process, he joined some very select company.
On Sunday, Shaheen came in to the game off the bench to grab four passes for 44 yards and a one-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter. In 13 games (seven starts) as a rookie, Shaheen has collected 12 passes for 127 yards and three touchdowns.
Only one other tight end in Bears history has caught at least three TDs in his pure rookie season – Hall of Famer Mike Ditka (12 in 1961). Another first-year tight end, Greg Latta, caught three touchdowns in 1975, but had played professionally for the Florida Blazers in the World Football League in 1974.
Shaheen has come on of late for Chicago, grabbing 11 of his 12 receptions and two of his three TDs since the Bears' bye week in the first week of November.
Shaheen is in his rookie season after being drafted in the second round (No. 45 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Bears. He is coming off a record-setting junior season at Ashland in 2016, one in which he caught a school-record and NCAA Division II single-season tight end-record 16 touchdown passes.
Shaheen garnered many prestigious honors following and during the 2016 campaign - 2016-17 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Student-Athlete of the Year, 2016-17 AU Male Student-Athlete of the Year, fall 2016 GLIAC Commissioner's Award, first-team American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), Division II Conference Commissioners Association (D2CCA) and D2Football.com first-team All-American; D2CCA and Don Hansen first-team All-Super Region 4, College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) first-team Academic All-America, CoSIDA first-team Academic All-District, All-GLIAC first-team and a Harlon Hill Trophy (D-II Player of the Year) nomination.
On Oct. 10, 2016, Shaheen was the first tight end in GLIAC history to win the conference's Offensive Player of the Week award.
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