Owls capture fifth consecutive C-USA Institutional Excellence Award

FROM RICE ATHLETICS

For the fifth-straight year, Rice University has earned the Conference USA Institutional Excellence Award, given to the C-USA institution with the highest grade point average during the current academic year for all student-athletes in conference-sponsored sports. Rice has claimed the honor in each academic year since it joined the league for the 2005-06 season.

The Owls also led the way with six Sport Academic Awards, which are given to the team in each conference-sponsored sport with the highest GPA for a current academic year. The news this week follows last week’s Conference USA announcement of its annual Scholar Athlete Award winners in which Rice University led the league with five student-athletes being recognized.

For the Institutional Excellence Award, Rice student-athletes combined for an annual GPA of 3.167, which is the highest in the Owls’ five-year run. Rice was joined by Tulane, Tulsa and University of Central Florida (UCF) in posting a combined GPA for all their student-athletes of 3.0 or better.

In the Sport Academic Awards, the Owls led the way with six sports posting the top combined GPA in the conference, followed by Tulsa (four), Memphis and ECU (two each) and UCF, University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Texas at El Paso (one each).

For the second year in a row, the Rice women’s tennis team posted the highest annual GPA of any sport at 3.67. The Owl volleyball team claimed its sport academic award, while earning the 2009 C-USA tournament championship title and an automatic bid to the NCAA Championship.

The Owls’ football and women’s tennis squads each captured their fifth consecutive C-USA Sports Academic Award, while women’s swimming was honored for the third consecutive year. Men’s track was honored for the fourth time in the last five years, and volleyball and women’s soccer earned their second awards.

Eight teams were repeat winners from a season ago, and Tulsa women’s rowing was recognized as Conference USA’s newest sponsored sport.

The Scholar Athlete Awards honor the top student-athlete in each Conference USA sport and are determined by the league’s faculty athletics representatives.

Rice University recipients for the 2009-10 academic year were Philip Adam (men’s track and field), Michael Buttacavoli (men’s golf), Lucas Kuipers (men’s basketball), Tracey Lam (volleyball) and Angela Wo (swimming).

Behind Rice University’s five recipients, Tulsa and UAB each had four selections and Tulane had two selections. East Carolina, Memphis and University of Texas at El Paso each had one student-athlete recognized.

These awards cap an outstanding year for the Owls in the classroom and in competition. In addition to capturing three conference titles, sending four teams to NCAA postseason action and producing the consensus national baseball player of the year in Anthony Rendon, Rice saw six student-athletes earn Academic All-America honors and a record four earn NCAA postgraduate scholarships, as well as setting a C-USA record by placing 227 student-athletes on the Commissioner’s Honor Roll.