HUNTINGTON -- For the second consecutive year, Marshall University student-athletes proved that they are among the elite in Conference USA, placing 172 student-athletes on the Conference USA Academic Honor Roll to finish fourth among C-USA teams.
To make the Academic Honor Roll, student-athletes must maintain a cumulative grade-point average of 3.0 or better for the entire school year. Figures were based on the 2007-08 school year.
"It speaks volumes as to how dedicated that our athletes are," Tara Helton, director of the Buck Harless Student-Athlete Program, said. "It takes hard work and effort. We are very pleased."
In the last few years, the NCAA has instituted an Academic Performance Program which requires schools to meet an Academic Progress Rate of 925, which equates to a 60 percent Graduation Success Rate as released by the NCAA.
Conference USA is made up of a mixture of public and private schools. According to Robert Bookwalter, faculty athletic representative for Marshall University, the private schools are geared toward recruiting the academically elite while the public schools generally recruit more student-athletes which would be labeled at risk due to low grade point average or test scores.
However, Bookwalter also noted that Marshall goes outside of the norm, according to the numbers.
"We are only one of four schools in the conference that has all of our teams above the (NCAA's) 925 threshold," Bookwalter said. "The other three schools are private schools."
On a day when many NCAA schools were being subject to penalties, Marshall University was celebrating the academic accomplishments of its student-athletes. Not only were all of Marshall's programs above the threshold, but 13 of 16 programs were above the average of NCAA public institutions across the nation.
Helton said that Marshall's success is thanks in part to an entire effort on behalf of the university to put the student back in student-athlete. Part of that comes from stiff NCAA penalties which include scholarship losses for sports that don't meet requirements.
"We are seeing a new commitment to succeeding academically. That's evident with all our coaches and our staff. It's a team effort," Helton said. "You have to succeed academically to maintain the number of scholarships you are used to receiving.
"In the past, there hadn't been coaches involved as much, but our coaches are constantly asking 'How are our academics?' or 'Where do we stand?' It has reiterated that they are student-athletes first."
In men's sports, basketball and soccer finished in the 70th-80th percentile of all schools while softball was in the 70th-80th percentile on the women's side.
Men's cross country, women's golf, women's swimming and diving and women's tennis were in the 60th-70th percentiles.
Women's swimming and diving led the way with 25 student-athletes on the Academic Honor Roll while women's soccer had 22.
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