Baseball Receives ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award
July 19, 2016
COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina was one of 29 NCAA Division I institutions to receive the 2015-16 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award. South Carolina is the only SEC school to receive the honor.
Baseball (3.186) recently earned its highest team GPA in season in the spring semester. In addition, 19 baseball student-athletes were named to the 2016 SEC Spring Academic Honor Roll with seven baseball student-athletes on the 2015-16 SEC First-Year Academic Honor Roll.
The recipients of the 2015-16 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award were high school and college programs that posted a GPA over 3.0 on a 4.0 scale for the academic year. Over 140 high school and college programs were recognized with the inaugural award.
“We are extremely proud to recognize the academic accomplishments of so many of our member coaches’ programs this year,” said ABCA Executive Director Craig Keilitz. “This award highlights our coaches’ commitment to developing student-athletes that excel both on and off the field, and we’re proud of these student-athletes for their success in the classroom.”
Teams from NCAA Divisions I, II and III, junior college and high school were honored. The new award was announced in May and the deadline for teams to be nominated was July 15.
In order to qualify for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, programs must meet the following criteria:
• Must be a high school or college team
• Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2015-16 academic year
• Head coach must be a current ABCA member
The American Baseball Coaches Association has a long tradition of recognizing the achievements of baseball coaches and student-athletes. The ABCA/Rawlings All-America Teams are the nation’s oldest, founded in 1949, and the ABCA’s awards program also includes the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region Awards, the ABCA/Diamond Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award.
2015-16 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award Recipients
NCAA Division I
Arkansas State University
Ball State University
Central Michigan University
Chicago State University
Duke University
East Carolina University
Eastern Kentucky University
Eastern Michigan University
Elon University
Gardner-Webb University
Georgia State University
Georgia Tech
Illinois State University
Lafayette College
LIU Brooklyn
Middle Tennessee State University
North Carolina A&T State University
Sacramento State
St. John’s University
UNC Greensboro
UNC Wilmington
University of Alabama-Birmingham
University of Evansville
University of Louisville
University of Maryland Eastern Shore
University of Portland
University of South Carolina
University of Southern Mississippi
University of Toledo
