May 27, 2015 WACO, Texas - Baylor University's highly-successful women's softball and golf teams earned public recognition awards from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Academic Performance Program for registering an Academic Progress Rate (APR) score which ranks among the top 10 within their respective sport. Both programs recorded perfect APR scores of 1,000.
"We continue to be very proud of our student-athletes' classroom performance," said Baylor Vice President and Director of Athletics Ian McCaw. "This sustained success is a credit to the dedication of our student-athletes, academic commitment of our coaches and the outstanding work of the student-athlete services staff. Baylor's faculty members also play a key role in the academic success of our student-athletes and are to be recognized for the outstanding job they do in the classroom."
While earning its fifth straight public APR award (fourth straight with a perfect APR score of 1,000) for its classroom excellence, Baylor softball's on field performance has been equally impressive with five consecutive NCAA Tournament trips and a pair of Women's College Series semi-final trips to its credit. Coach Glenn Moore's program was the only Big 12 softball program to earn an APR award this year, marking the fourth straight season it has been the lone league program recognized for academic excellence by the NCAA.
Coach Jay Goble's women's golf team, which meets Stanford for the NCAA Championship later today in Bradenton, Fla., garnered the program's third APR award and first since 2010. The 2014-15 season has seen Baylor claim its first-ever Big 12 title in the sport as well as its first NCAA Regional crown en route to its deepest postseason run in program history.
Baylor has now received 14 public APR awards in six sports--men's cross country (2006 and 2011), baseball (2007 and 2012), men's basketball (2009), men's golf (2010), women's golf (2009, 2010 and 2015) and softball (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015) since the program was instituted 10 years ago.
In the latest NCAA APR report, based on scores from the 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years, every Baylor program registered an APR score of at least 948, no teams are subject to penalty and 10 of 17 teams equaled or surpassed their 2014 APR score.
Baylor produced the Big 12's top APR score in three sports--softball, women's golf and women's soccer, while ranking No. 2 in baseball and men's golf and third in football, men's outdoor track & field, women's tennis, women's indoor track & field and women's outdoor track & field among fellow conference schools.
Baylor's sport-by-sport 2015 APR scores are:
Men's Programs: Baseball (990), basketball (963), cross country (982), football (960), golf (993), tennis (948), indoor track (963) and outdoor track (965).
Women's Programs: Basketball (974), cross country (990), golf (1000), soccer (995), softball (1000), tennis (987), indoor track (990), outdoor track (989) and volleyball (990).
Each year, the NCAA honors selected Division I sports teams by publicly recognizing their latest multiyear NCAA Division I Academic Progress Rate (APR). This announcement is part of the overall Division I academic reform effort and is intended to highlight teams that demonstrate a commitment to academic progress and retention of student-athletes by achieving the top APRs within their respective sports. Specifically, these teams posted multiyear APRs in the top 10 percent of all squads in each sport.
The APR provides a real-time look at a team's academic success each semester by tracking the academic progress of each student-athlete on scholarship. The APR accounts for eligibility, retention and graduation and provides a measure of each team's academic performance.
In 2015, the NCAA honored 1,124 teams for high academic achievement representing 696 women's teams and 428 men's or mixed squads, the highest ever in the decade since the NCAA began the Public Recognition Awards program. In 2014, 1,049 teams were recognized, marking an increase this year of 75 teams.
The scores required to be in the top ten ranged from 980 to a perfect 1,000, depending on the sport. This year, a record 953 teams earned public recognition with a perfect APR score.
"We congratulate each of the teams and individual student-athletes for their dedication to academic success," said NCAA President Mark Emmert. "This achievement demonstrates their hard work and the commitment of NCAA member schools to provide students with an opportunity to succeed academically and athletically."
