NEW ORLEANS – For the fourth year in a row, the Tulane baseball team received the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award according to an announcement by the organization on Tuesday.
Teams from every level of college and high school baseball were honored with this year’s award, which highlights programs coached by ABCA members that posted a GPA of 3.0 or above on a 4.0 scale for the entire 2019-20 academic year.
The Green Wave are one of just 22 NCAA Division I baseball programs who have received the award in four consecutive years and one of just four American Athletic Conference programs along with Cincinnati, East Carolina and Memphis to earn the recognition.
A record 423 college and high school programs submitted nominations and received this year’s award. In total, 143 high school teams along with 280 programs from the NCAA Div. I, II, III, NAIA, and Junior College levels were recognized.
“In light of the challenges faced by so many programs across the country, we are humbled to be able to honor a record number of teams for their outstanding academic achievements,” said ABCA Executive Director Craig Keilitz. “It is a testament to the leadership of our member coaches and the commitment of their student-athletes who persevered during an unprecedented academic year.”
Coaches were able to nominate their teams for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award following the conclusion of their spring semesters prior to the nomination deadline of July 17. To be honored, teams had to meet the following criteria:
- Must be a high school or college team
- Head coach must be a current ABCA member
- Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2019-20 academic year (Due to some schools changing to Pass/Fail grading, spring semester grades were not required to be included in the cumulative calculation).
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 Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award.
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{Courtesy: Press Release from Tulane Athletics}