RICHMOND, Ky. – Two Eastern Kentucky University football players – Emory Attig and Kyle Lumpkin – were named to the 2012 NFF Hampshire Honor Society, as announced by the National Football Foundation & College Hall of Fame Wednesday.

Qualifications for membership in the NFF Hampshire Honor Society include: being a starter or a significant substitute in one’s last year of eligibility at an accredited NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, Football Championship Subdivision, Division II, Division III, or an NAIA college or university; achieving a 3.2 cumulative grade point average throughout entire course of undergraduate study; and meeting all NCAA-mandated progress towards degree requirements and graduation.

Attig and Lumpkin, who have already earned their bachelor’s degrees, helped Eastern Kentucky to an at-large berth in the FCS playoffs and a share of the OVC championship this past fall. Attig was a three-year starter on the defensive line and named a third team All-American by The Sports Network in 2011. Lumpkin was the team’s top running back in 2010 before a knee injury sidelined him for the final six games of that season. He served as the team’s primary third-down back as a senior.

The group is comprised of college football players from all divisions of play who each maintained a 3.2 GPA or better. A total of 721 players from 232 schools qualified for membership in the society’s sixth year, marking this year’s class as the largest since the program’s creation in 2007.

The NFF Hampshire Honor Society capitalizes on the NFF’s current National Scholar-Athlete program, greatly expanding the number of scholar-athletes the NFF can recognize each year and further strengthening the organization’s leadership role in encouraging academic performance by the student-athletes who play football at the more than 700 college and universities with football programs nationwide. Jon F. Hanson, the chairman and founder of The Hampshire Companies, provided an endowment to launch the NFF Hampshire Honor Society in 2007. He made the contribution as part of his legacy to the organization after serving as NFF chairman from 1994-2006. Each of the 721 players awarded with membership in this year’s Honor Society will receive a certificate commemorating the achievement.

“Thanks to the generosity of Jon Hanson, we have honored more than 3,000 student-athletes in the last six years,” said NFF Chairman Archie Manning, “The Hampshire Honor Society allows us to showcase how much football matters in building tomorrow’s leaders, and we strongly encourage every football-playing school in the country to get involved.”