Volleyball Earns AVCA Team Academic Award
July 17, 2018
COLUMBIA, S.C. – The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced its Team Academic Award recipients on Monday, July 16. South Carolina made the list for the ninth-straight season, and the tenth time overall since the award began in 1993.
“The biggest point of pride for our program is to develop great people in addition to great athletes, and there is no better example than receiving the AVCA Academic Award in addition to reaching our Dig Pink fundraising goal,” head coach Tom Mendoza said. “Our student-athletes put in a tremendous amount of work to better themselves and the community around them, and we are thrilled there’s a way to recognize their effort. These are the type of high-character people who we are excited to work with and continue building our program around.”
The award recognizes college and high school volleyball teams that maintain at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale. For 2017-18, 973 teams were recognized by the AVCA, marking the 13th year in a row of improvement from the previous school year.
South Carolina maintained an in-season grade point average of 3.554 for the fall semester, then improved to 3.606 in the spring term. The work in the classroom is matched by an average of 49 hours of volunteer work per person on the team, earning it the department’s Community Service Team Award for the third-straight academic year.
South Carolina returns all but two of its letter winners from 2017, and brings back five starters and its libero. The Gamecocks will hold their annual Garnet and Black scrimmage on Aug. 18, and kick off the 2018 regular season on Aug. 24 with a weekend home tournament featuring Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, ETSU and Clemson.
