SEWARD, Neb. – As announced on NAIA National Awards Day (Sept. 15), Concordia University, Nebraska Athletics has been recognized with a total of 226 Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athletes and 19 NAIA Scholar-Teams for the 2019-20 academic year. Nationally, more than 10,000 student-athletes and 2,000 teams were honored by the NAIA.
In order to be nominated for Scholar-Athlete honors, a student-athlete must maintain a minimum grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, must appear on the eligibility certificate for the sport and have attended two full years as a non-transfer or one full year as a transfer (at the close of the 2019-20 academic year). Scholar-Teams qualify for recognition by achieving at least a 3.0 GPA.
Concordia University ranks as the NAIA’s all-time leader in number of Daktronics-NAIA Scholar-Athletes with 1,703 and counting. The new timeline for announcing NAIA Scholar-Athletes resulted in a larger number of student-athletes being eligible to garner the award. The 226 Bulldog Scholar-Athletes in 2019-20 shatters the previous school record of 117 achieved in 2018-19. Concordia has been a regular national leader for both Scholar-Athletes and Scholar-Teams.
In addition, the 2019-20 season resulted in 11 Bulldogs being named CoSIDA Academic All-District honorees. Six of those award winners went on to be tabbed CoSIDA Academic All-Americans. Grace Barry of the women’s basketball program was voted the NAIA’s Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year. Since the 2012-13 academic year, Concordia athletes have combined for 67 Academic All-District recipients and 39 Academic All-Americans.
