PEORIA, Ill. -- Four teams within the Bradley University Department of Athletics -- Men's Golf, Soccer, Women's Tennis and Volleyball -- have received public recogntion from the NCAA in honor of their Academic Progress Rate scores. The NCAA on Thursday released its list of 839 teams representing 217 Division I institutions that have posted multi-year APR scores in the top 10 percent of all squads in their respective sports.
NCAA President Myles Brand noted that the recognized teams all posted APR scores ranging from 975 to a perfect 1,000.
“These teams prove once again that student-athletes are students first, and many of them are excellent students,” Brand said in the NCAA release. “I want to personally congratulate these teams and their student-athletes who are working hard in their sport and in the classroom and setting a great example for all students.”
Bradley was second in the Missouri Valley Conference with its four team awards, trailing only Creighton's seven awards. The two schools were the only Valley institutions to be represented by both genders and are home to the only men's sports recognized in the league.
“We remain extremely proud, not only of these four programs, but of the continued overall successes of all our teams,” said Bradley Director of Athletics Ken Kavanagh. “These significant combined results remain a by-product of the diligent efforts of the fine young men and women in our program, as well as the daily contributions by our coaches, academic advising units and Bradley University's quality faculty. Regardless of the potential for professional athletic opportunities, graduation remains our ultimate goal, and we derive substantial satisfaction in knowing that our student-athletes are producing so well in the classroom.”
Bradley boasts one of just 21 men's soccer programs from around the nation to receive the public recogntion from the NCAA for its APR success and the Braves were the only team from The Valley or the NSCAA Midwest Region to be honored. Seven of the 21 soccer programs honored are members of the IVY League.
In addition to its stellar peformance in the APR grading, the Bradley Soccer program has won back-to-back Valley regular-season championships. The Braves also have advanced to the championship game of the MVC Tournament each of the last two years and earned an at-large invitation to the 2005 NCAA Tournament. At the same time, four different players have achieved national recognition for their combined academic and athletic excellence: Chris Dunsheath (2005) and Zach Bell (2006) both have been voted NSCAA Scholar All-Americans, while Adam Hage (2005) and Todd Reedy (2006) have been selected ESPN the Magazine Academic All-Americans.
The public recognition from the NCAA for the Men's Golf, Soccer, Women's Tennis and Volleyball programs is the latest good news for the academic success of Bradley's student-athletes. In the most-recent release of four-class graduation rates from the NCAA, Bradley continued to lead The Valley at 76 percent. With an overall department grade point average of 3.13 through the 2006 Fall semester, three teams -- Women's Basketball (3.298), Women's Golf (3.658) and Women's Track and Field (3.386) -- received recognition from their respective coaching organizations for their team GPAs during the 2005-06 academic year. Additionally, the Bradley Department of Athletics has produced 22 Academic All-Americans and national Scholar-Athletes since 1995.
