{"id":14135,"date":"2020-01-24T15:59:27","date_gmt":"2020-01-24T21:59:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=14135"},"modified":"2020-03-05T10:47:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T16:47:49","slug":"harding-finishes-decade-of-academic-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2020\/01\/24\/harding-finishes-decade-of-academic-honors\/","title":{"rendered":"Harding finishes decade of academic honors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Harding University received 43 Academic All-America honors this past decade \u2014 the most in the Great American Conference (GAC) and in the state of Arkansas. The research was done by Wingate University in Wingate, North Carolina.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These citations, which are chosen by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA), were awarded to student athletes who either started for their team or were an important reserve and who maintained at least a 3.30 cumulative grade point average (on a 4.0 scale). The athletes must also have completed a full year at their current institution and reached sophomore athletic eligibility. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harding\u2019s 43 awards tied for 41st out of universities in the United States and Canada, and for 14th among NCAA Division II schools. In the GAC Harding had 12 more awards than Oklahoma Baptist, which placed second. In the state of Arkansas, it had nine more than the University of Arkansas. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harding\u2019s assistant athletic director Scott Goode explained his involvement in the process.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe nominating starts about halfway through a sports season,\u201d Goode said. \u201cI have access to the GPAs \u2026 and I\u2019ll nominate as many student athletes as are eligible.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After nominations go out, CoSIDA members receive a ballot and are able to vote on student athletes in their district. Harding\u2019s district includes the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association and the Northern Sun intercollegiate conferences, along with the GAC. After district winners are announced, they are nominated for the All-America award. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Goode said he believed Harding\u2019s track record of academically successful atheletes was due to both efforts of coaches and students alike.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it works from both directions,\u201d Goode said. \u201cWe have coaches looking for that, and we have student athletes looking to find that.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past decade, the Harding sport with the most All-America honors was men\u2019s track with 12 athletes receiving the award. Women\u2019s track tied for second place with seven awards. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI\u2019ve been really impressed with their character and commitment and their ability to balance the commitments that they have with social clubs, churches, academics and athletics,\u201d said head track and cross-country coach Don Hood, \u201cAnd so to carry those kinds of GPAs while doing all that just says a lot about their commitment to being excellent in every part of life.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Junior decathlete Matthew Hipshire, who received the Academic All-America honor in 2019, confirmed the mindset that Hood recognizes in his athletes. \u201cMy parents instilled in me really early on a strong work ethic,\u201d Hipshire said. \u201cI know that in order to do as well as I want to do I have to put in work.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s Academic All-America recipients for men\u2019s and women\u2019s soccer, football and volleyball have already been announced and can be found at Hardingsports.com. Winter sports will be recognized in February, and spring sports in May or June. <\/strong>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harding University received 43 Academic All-America honors this past decade \u2014 the most in the Great American Conference (GAC) and in the state of Arkansas. The research was done by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15171,"featured_media":14136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14137,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14135\/revisions\/14137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}