HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford Baseball program was awarded an American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) Team Academic Excellence Award for the 2017-18 academic year, the coaches organization announced in a release today.
A record number of teams were recognized with the 2017-18 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award. In total, 287 college and high school programs received this year's award, including 76 teams from NCAA Division III.
"We are thrilled to be able to honor all of this year's Team Academic Excellence Award recipients," said ABCA Executive Director Craig Keilitz. "It is a privilege for our association to have the opportunity to highlight so many deserving teams and recognize all of the hard work they put in off the field throughout the year."
Haverford joined Franklin & Marshall, Johns Hopkins and Swarthmore as Centennial Conference members receiving the honor this season. The Fords join Johns Hopkins as the only two Centennial Conference programs to be honored with the award in each of the three seasons that it has been awarded. In order to be eligible to receive the plaudit, a team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2017-18 academic year and the head coach must be a current ABCA member.
The American Baseball Coaches Association has a long tradition of recognizing the achievements of baseball coaches and student-athletes. The ABCA/Rawlings All-America Teams are the nation's oldest, founded in 1949, and the ABCA's awards program also includes the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region Awards, the ABCA/Diamond Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award.