LEXINGTON, Ky. - The American Volleyball Coaches Association released a record 481 colleges, including Moravian College, and high school volleyball teams that have earned the 2010-11 AVCA Team Academic Award.
The award, which began in 1992-93, honors college and high school teams that displayed excellence in the classroom by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average during the 2010-11 school year and passed last year's mark of 450 schools honored in 2009-10. Nominating coaches must be AVCA members.
Recipients of the award range from NCAA Division I institutions to high school girls' and boys' teams. The college ranks produced 287 schools that met the requirements for the award, while 194 high school programs earned the distinction. The breakdown of college representation includes 92 NCAA Division I schools, 57 NCAA Division II schools, 88 NCAA Division III schools, five NCAA men's programs, 31 NAIA schools and 14 junior college/community colleges. The totals for NCAA Division II and Division III were both divisional records this year.
Moravian, under the direction of head coach Shelley Bauder, earned the AVCA Team Academic Award for the sixth time since the award was started. The Greyhounds and fellow Landmark Conference schools Goucher College and Susquehanna University honored.
"A hearty congratulations to all the volleyball coaches whose teams won the 2011 AVCA Team Academic Award," said AVCA Executive Director, Kathy DeBoer. "Teams do not succeed in the classroom by accident any more so than they do on the court. The same coach who taught them volleyball skills cared enough about their academic achievement to gather their grades, calculate their GPA, and submit a nomination on their behalf. In doing so, these coaches sent a clear message that classroom success is just as important as court success. All involved should celebrate this award!"
The Team Academic Award has become one of the AVCA's fastest growing awards programs, seeing an impressive surge in teams honored over the past several years. Since the 2000-2001 season, the number of recipients has increased every single year but one, while amassing an overall 170% increase over the span of the decade. Since the award's inception in 1993, the award has risen by an astounding 674%. NCAA Division II recorded their highest-ever total number of recipients, honoring 57 programs while Division III easily surpassed last year's record of 75 winners with 88 this year. The high school division also set a new record with its 194 recipients.
Prior to 2010-11, only 11 teams had attained the pinnacle of volleyball success in both earning the AVCA Team Academic Award and winning their respective collegiate national championship in the same academic year. This year, the AVCA is proud to recognize three programs -- Calvin College (NCAA Division III), Concordia University-St. Paul (NCAA Division II), and Clearwater Christian College (NCCAA Division II) - all three of whom excelled in the classroom and on the court.
Over 1,000 different schools have earned the award in the program's 19-year history, with exactly 4,297 awards been given out in total. Only two institutions, both high schools, have earned the distinction all 19 years: Jonesboro High School (Jonesboro, Arkansas) and Ross S. Sterling High School (Baytown, Texas).
