Eleven Highlander Teams Earn Academic Honor
(Houghton, N.Y.)—Eleven of Houghton College’s athletics
teams have earned a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of at
least 3.00 (out of 4.00), exceeding the standard to be named a
Scholar Team by the National Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA).
Only a dozen other colleges in the country—out of almost
300 that compete in the NAIA—had more teams qualify for the
honor, and all of them fielded teams in more sports.
“We’re certainly pleased that so many of our teams were
able to earn this recognition,” said H. “Skip” Lord, director of
athletics at the Christian liberal arts college in the Southern
Tier. “It’s not unusual for our scholar-athletes to achieve in
the classroom, but to have the NAIA recognize the breadth of
that achievement is something special.”
Houghton has 12 varsity teams, only 11 of which were
eligible for the honor because they compete in the NAIA. The
12th team, field hockey, would have made the list as well, but
the NAIA doesn’t oversee that sport.
The women’s teams that the NAIA recognized were:
basketball (3.27 GPA), cross country (3.21), indoor track and
field (3.39), outdoor track and field (3.39), soccer (3.39) and
volleyball (3.34). The men’s teams were: basketball (3.01),
indoor track and field (3.11), outdoor track and field (3.11)
and soccer (3.24).
Of special note for men’s basketball: only 28 men’s
basketball teams in the NAIA achieved the Scholar Team standard,
and Houghton’s was the only one in the American Mideast
Conference.
“Houghton has long had a reputation as a college with a
high academic standard,” Lord said, “so it’s not surprising that
our athletes achieve in the classroom as well as in the arena.”
Typically, the combined GPA of Houghton students
participating in intercollegiate athletics is about the same as
the GPA of the student body as a whole. The athletes also mirror
the student body in studying a wide variety of majors, more than
two dozen for the athletes at last count.
“It says a lot about the quality of the students who
choose to come here,” Lord says, “that they are able to balance
the physical demands of intercollegiate athletics with the
mental discipline that the academic program requires.”
