Alabama Athletics Enjoys Another Championship Season in the Classroom
8/17/2016 12:20:00 PM | General
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - As classes get underway this week at The University of Alabama for the fall semester, the Crimson Tide athletics department is coming off another record-setting year in the classroom, building on the Crimson Tide's well-established tradition of classroom excellence. Nowhere was that better demonstrated than in Alabama's unprecedented success when it comes to the CoSIDA Academic All-America program.
There are 12 Academic All-America teams administered by the College Sports Information Directors of America, including men's and women's soccer, football, volleyball, men's and women's basketball, baseball, softball, men's and women's track and field/cross country as well as the men's and women's at-large teams, which spans 17 sports. Each of those teams names an Academic All-American of the year. In 2015-16, Alabama became the first school in the award's history to have three student-athletes earn Academic All-American of the Year honors in the same academic year.
Haylie McCleney earned Softball Academic All-American of the Year again in 2015-16, becoming the first UA student-athlete to earn the honor twice in a career. Lauren Beers (gymnastics) and Anton McKee (swimming and diving) gave Alabama the first sweep of the at-large program's Academic All-American of the Year accolades. All three earned All-America honors in 2015-16. McCleney also earned the Senior CLASS Award for softball while Beers was named the Southeastern Conference Community Service Leader of the Year. McKee followed up his extraordinary junior year with his second trip to the Olympics in August.
In addition to earning Academic All-American of the Year honors for their respective sports at least once in each of the last seven years, Crimson Tide student-athletes have been named Academic All-American of the Year for all sports in three of the last five years (Brooke Pancake of women's golf in 2012; Barrett Jones of football in 2013; Kim Jacob of gymnastics in 2014).
For the third year in a row, Alabama tallied double-digit Academic All-American honors in 2015-16, totaling 10 accolades. The Tide's three-year total of 35 is the most in the nation over that span. In addition to McCleney, Beers and McKee topping their respective sports, seven others earned Academic All-America status. Connor Oslin and Pavel Romanov (men's swimming and diving), who both swam legs on Alabama's NCAA champion 200 medley relay, earned a place on the men's at-large team while All-American gymnast Mackenzie Brannan joined Beers on the women's at-large squad. Sierra Wilson earned her second honor in volleyball while All-American and NCAA Champion Quanesha Burks and All-American Alex Gholston earned the honor in women's track and field/cross country. All-American Sydney Littlejohn joined McCleney in earning the honor in softball.
With huge Academic All-America classes each of the last three years, Alabama has made a big jump in the national rankings, moving from 13th all-time in NCAA Division I following the 2012-13 academic year to fifth following 2014-15. The Tide remains in fifth place all-time with 149 honors following the 2015-16 season. The Tide's all-time total is the best in the SEC. The Crimson Tide has also made a significant jump when it comes to honors since 2000, sitting in third place with 113.
After a school-record seven student-athletes earned NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships in 2014, Alabama has added five more over the last two years, including Beers, Wilson and track and field/cross country's Katelyn Greenleaf in 2015-16. The Tide now owns a five-year total of 25 NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships.
Beers earned the NCAA Elite 90 Award for the third year in a row in 2016. The Elite 90 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA's 90 championships. The Crimson Tide leads the nation in NCAA Elite 90 Awards with 15 over the seven-year history of the award. Stanford has 14 and no other school has more than nine. Alabama gymnastics is the only program in the NCAA to go a perfect 7-for-7 in the Elite 90 Award.
On a conference level, McCleney earned the league's top honor, taking home the 2015-16 Southeastern Conference H. Boyd McWhorter Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, earning a $15,000 postgraduate scholarship in the process. McCleney is the first UA softball player, and only the second softball player in league history, to earn the conference's highest academic accolade. With McCleney's win, Alabama is now tied with Georgia for the most honors in the award's 31-year history with 10. The Tide has earned seven honors since 2000, the most in the SEC over that span.
Beers (gymnastics) was one of five Crimson Tide students named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year for their respective sports, giving Alabama the most honors of any school in the league. She was joined by Oslin (men's swimming and diving), Retin Obasohan (men's basketball), Ryan Kelly (football) and Abby Lutzenkirchen (soccer). Over the past five years, Alabama student-athletes have earned this award 28 times.
Alabama was also prolific when it came to the SEC Academic Honor Roll, earning the accolade 350 times during the 2015-16 academic year. The Crimson Tide had 82, 59 and 126 student-athletes named to the SEC Fall, Winter and Spring Academic Honor Rolls and 83 named to the First-Year Academic Honor Roll.
On a department-wide basis, Alabama's more than 500 student-athletes averaged over a 3.16 grade point average, including 47 who maintain a career GPA of 4.0. Six UA teams posted cumulative GPAs above 3.5 for the year, marking the sixth year in a row that at least five teams have met that standard, while 12 of 17 programs earned GPAs over 3.0 for the academic year.
More than 125 student-athletes earned their degrees during the 2015-16 academic year, including the winter, spring and summer graduations. The latest numbers reveal that Alabama graduates 72 percent of its student-athletes while the general student population graduates at a rate of 66 percent.
In 2015, for the third consecutive year, Alabama football led the nation in graduates on its roster for postseason play with 29 - a national record for the most graduates playing on a single team. Alabama football also had the highest Graduation Success Rate among the four teams selected for last year's College Football Playoff. Alabama produced a score of 86 while Clemson posted an 84, Michigan State a 66 and Oklahoma a 65. This is not a new trend. In fact, the Crimson Tide's last four national football championship teams (2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015) featured 90 players who had earned their degrees before the championship game even got underway. Over the past eight seasons (2008-15) Alabama has seen 160 degrees earned (graduate and undergraduate) by players still suiting up for the Crimson Tide after already having graduated.
Alabama student-athletes earning their degrees while still competing has become such a common occurrence, that the department developed a graduation insignia for them to wear on their uniform during competition.
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