Hounds win LSC academic honors

Staff report

RICHARDSON, Texas — Eastern New Mexico University and Texas Woman’s earned the inaugural Lone Star Conference Academic Excellence Award.

ENMU claimed the men’s award, while TWU was the women’s honoree for the athletic departments with the highest collective team GPA among its sports teams for the 2013-14 academic year.

The Greyhounds and Pioneers will each receive $2,500, along with a custom trophy.

The Greyhounds posted the top team GPA in three sports — football, baseball and men’s soccer — including three individuals with 4.0s.

TWU boasted the top GPA in volleyball and women’s soccer with nine individuals posting perfect 4.0 marks.

ENMU’s women ranked sixth in the LSC.

“We’re very proud of our men’s teams,” ENMU athletic director Jeff Geiser said. “The Zias (women’s teams) finished sixth, but the women’s overall GPAs are generally higher than the men’s, so they’re doing fine as well.

“I think the importance of awards like this is it emphasizes the Division II model, which puts the ‘student’ into ‘student-athlete.”

The award winners were determined by a point system, with points distributed according to finish by sport in which there is a NCAA Division II Championship after a conference-wide comparison of team GPA’s. The member institution with the highest team GPA in each sport was named the sport's Academic Champion and earned five (5) points toward the overall award.

Each sport’s runner-up picked up four points and third-place three points toward the overall award. Any program with a team GPA of 2.00 and above earned one point.

Points for each member institution were totaled by gender and then divided by that institution’s number of counter programs in that gender to arrive at the comparison value.

“This award was established to highlight the league’s pursuit of academic excellence while recognizing outstanding academic achievement of LSC student-athletes, individual sport programs, and athletic departments,” LSC interim commissioner Jay Poerner said.

LSC ACADEMIC RANKINGS

The following is a ranking of the teams for the 2013-14 school year, by gender and the Sport Academic Champions:

Men

1. Eastern New Mexico

2. West Texas A&M

3. Tarleton State

4. (tie) Cameron

4. (tie) Midwestern State

6. Texas A&M-Commerce

7. Angelo State

8. Texas A&M-Kingsville

Women

1. Texas Woman’s

2. West Texas A&M

3. Texas A&M-Commerce

4. (tie) Angelo State

4. (tie) Tarleton State

6. Eastern New Mexico

7. Cameron

8. Midwestern State

9. Texas A&M-Kingsville