HATTIESBURG — The Southern Miss baseball team earned recognition Tuesday by the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) in receiving a 2015-16 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award.

One of 30 Division I programs to earn this award, high school and college programs which post a GPA over 3.0 on a 4.0 scale for the academic year are honored. Over a total of 140 high school and college programs were recognized with the inaugural award.

“We are extremely proud to recognize the academic accomplishments of so many of our member coaches’ programs this year,” said ABCA Executive Director Craig Keilitz. “This award highlights our coaches’ commitment to developing student-athletes that excel both on and off the field, and we’re proud of these student-athletes for their success in the classroom.”

Teams from NCAA Divisions I, II and III, junior college and high school were honored. The new award was announced in May.

In order to qualify for the ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award, programs must meet the following criteria:
• Must be a high school or college team
• Team must have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.00 on a 4.0 scale during the 2015-16 academic year
• Head coach must be a current ABCA member

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 ABCA/Wilson Lefty Gomez Award.

2015-16 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award Recipients
NCAA Division I
• Arkansas State University
• Ball State University, Indiana
• Chicago State University, Illinois
• Duke University, North Carolina
• East Carolina University, North Carolina
• Eastern Kentucky University
• Eastern Michigan University
• Elon University, North Carolina
• Gardner-Webb University, North Carolina
• Illinois State University
• Lafayette College, Pennsylvania
• LIU Brooklyn, New York
• Middle Tennessee State University
• North Carolina A&T State University
• Sacramento State, California
• St. John’s University, New York
• UNC Greensboro
• UNC Wilmington
• University of Alabama-Birmingham
• University of Evansville, Indiana
• University of Louisville, Kentucky
• University of Maryland Eastern Shore
• University of Portland, Oregon
• University of South Carolina
•University of Southern Mississippi
•University of Toledo, Ohio