Cowgirl Volleyball On AVCA Academic Award List

The University of Wyoming Women's Volleyball Team was one of 130 Division I Institutions to be named as a recipient of the 2012-13 AVCA Team Academic Award by the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

It's the fifth year in a row that they have received the honor.

The Cowgirls had an overall grade point average of 3.501 for the 2012-13 Academic Year. Wyoming had 12 members on this year's Mountain West All-Academic Volleyball Team and seven MW Scholar-Athletes. UW finished the season with a 21-11 overall record and an 8-8 mark in the Mountain West.

The American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) announced that 622 teams earned the AVCA Team Academic Award for the 2012-13 season. The number once again breaks the previous year's total of 536 and sets a new all-time high for this award. The 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.

The AVCA 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 300% increase over the span of the last decade. Since the award's inception in 1993, the amount of award winners has increased from 62 to its current number of 622. NCAA Division I recorded their highest-ever total number of recipients, honoring 130 programs while Division II surpassed last year's record of 69 winners with 77 this year. Division III also set a new record with 93 winners and the high school division increased their all-time high of 220 recipients to 253. Finally, the NAIA set a new record with 46 winners garnering the award.

Prior to 2012-2013, only 16 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 two programs who excelled in the classroom and on the court: Concordia University-St. Paul (NCAA Division II) and Clearwater Christian College (NCCAA Division II).

Over 1,000 different schools have earned the award in the program's 20-year history, with exactly 5,450 awards been given out in total.