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Volleyball Earns AVCA Team Academic Honors
LEXINGTON, Ky. The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced today that the DePaul volleyball team is one of 70 Division I institutions to earn the AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2007-2008 season. A record 353 collegiate and high school programs earned the national honor. "I am so proud of my team," DePaul head coach Amy Hardison said. "This award shows our program's commitment to academic excellence and the development of the true student-athlete. I look forward to our student-athletes continuing their high academic standards this next school year." The AVCA award, which was initiated in the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale. "This result is just phenomenal!" said AVCA Executive Director Kathy DeBoer. "Look at this in context: We have coaches representing about 3,000 different academic institutions. Of that total, 353, or nearly 12%, coach teams with a grade point average of 3.3 or better! How can you not be proud of that?" NCAA Division I broke its own record for number of collegiate schools at any division receiving the award, as 70 of those institutions were honored this year, surpassing the mark of 56 set a year ago. NCAA Division III also surpassed the previous collegiate record, as well as its own division-high, as 62 of those schools attained the mark. In total, 212 collegiate programs met the requirements for the award in 2007-08. In addition to the NCAA Division I & Division III recipients, a total of 39 NCAA Division II schools bested its previous high mark of 31. The NAIA had 22 of its member schools achieve the honor this year, its third-highest total in the award’s history. Fifteen (15) schools in the two-year college category attained the mark, the highest ever in that division, while the NCCAA produced two recipients. The NCAA men’s programs produced multiple recipients of the award for only the second time, as three institutions earned the award for the second consecutive year. A total of 141 high school boys’ and girls’ programs 13 boys’ teams and 128 girls’ teams earned the award in 2007-08. Over 900 different schools have earned the award in the program’s 16-year history, and over 2,800 awards have been given out. The Blue Demons begin their 2008 season at the Chicagoland Classic hosted by Loyola-Chicago Aug. 29-30. DePaul and the Ramblers square off on Friday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m.
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