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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebels Claim Team Academic Award For Third Straight Year
7/22/2009 | Volleyball
OXFORD, Miss. -- The Ole Miss Volleyball program showed its ability to set the standard in the classroom for the third straight year as the Rebels were recently named as a recipient of the Gameplan/AVCA Team Academic Award.
Ole Miss was one of only two schools in the Southeastern Conference to claim the award along with the University of Florida. Both schools have claimed the award three consecutive seasons and are the only two schools in the conference to achieve the feat over that period.
"I am very honored and proud of the effort the team put toward their work in the classroom," said Ole Miss head coach Joe Getzin. "This is the third year in a row for the program to receive the award and I think that says a lot about the character of our volleyball student-athletes here at Ole Miss."
Ole Miss was one of 71 Division I schools to receive the Gameplan/AVCA Team Academic Award, the American Volleyball Coaches Association announced recently. The award is given annually in recognition of teams who achieve a cumulative GPA of 3.30 or higher for the academic year.
The Rebels won the Gameplan/AVCA Team Academic Award for the first time in 2007 before claiming the award again in 2008. The program also claimed the Chancellor's Cup in the fall of 2006 having for the highest GPA of any team on campus.
The award, which was initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school teams that displayed excellence in the classroom by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale and a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale during the school year. Nominating head coaches must be AVCA members. Each school will receive a plaque, and each player a certificate commemorating the designation.
Recipients of the award range from NCAA Division I institutions to high school girls' and boys' teams. The college ranks produced 212 programs that met the requirements for the award in 2007-08 across all divisions.
"Each year I'm impressed all over again by the academic prowess of volleyball players," said AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer. "Total AVCA Team Academic Award winners increased this year by another 55 schools (15%) over last year's record, and, even more impressive, 22% of our four-year college teams had grade point averages of 3.2 or better."
Ole Miss will open the 2009 season on Aug. 28 when the Rebels take on Texas State at the Missouri Tiger Invitational at the University of Missouri.
