LSC announces academic awards

RICHARDSON, Texas — Texas-Tyler was awarded the Lone Star Conference’s Academic Excellence Award Thursday for both men’s and women’s sports, according to a release from the conference office.

The award is presented annually to the athetic departments with the highest collective grade point average among its teams. The win by the Patriot programs marked the second time in the eight-year history of the award the same school took both the men’s and women’s award.

"We are thrilled to reward the outstanding academic success of UT Tyler student-athletes during a challenging 2020-21 academic year," LSC Commissioner Jay Poerner said in the release. "Thank you to Balfour for their continued support of this most prestigious award."

Schools earn a point for every program with a team GPA of at least 2.0. The school with the top GPA in each sport gets five points, with four points for the runner-up and three points for third. Points are then divided by the total number of programs.

The Patriots had the top GPA in five men’s sports and four women’s sports. Eastern New Mexico University had the top GPA in football.

Prior to this year, West Texas A&M was the only school to take both men’s and women’s honors in the same year, as the Buffs took the men’s award and tied Texas Woman’s for the women’s award in 2014-15.

Eastern New Mexico has won three academic excellence awards, taking the men’s award in 2014 and 2017 and the women’s award in 2018.