HILTON HEAD, S.C. -- Georgia Southwestern State University won its fourth consecutive Peach Belt Conference Presidents' Academic Award, the league announced recently at its annual awards dinner. The Hurricanes have now claimed the award six times overall, the most of any institution since the conference established the academic honor in 2006. GSW's four straight Presidents' Academic Awards also mark the longest winning streak in conference history.
The award recognizes excellence in academics concerning all of an institution's student-athletes.
At the end of the academic school year the Peach Belt Conference asked each of the league's 11 members to submit an average GPA for the undergraduate student body and a GPA for all student-athletes. These two numbers were used to determine each institutions' GPA ratio that identifies which school's athletes are performing most ahead of the curve in comparison to the student body. The schools are not measured against one another, just their athletes to their students.
Georgia Southwestern student-athletes carried an average GPA of 3.26 for the academic year while the undergraduate student body had a 2.86. That ratio of 1.1398 was the highest among all conference members for the year. The GSW student-athlete GPA is also the highest it has been in the last 10 years.
The Presidents' Academic Award is part of a larger conference program to highlight the accomplishments of PBC student-athletes in the classroom as well as on the field.
Presidents' Academic Award Recipients
2025-26 - Georgia Southwestern State University
2024-25 - Georgia Southwestern State University
2023-24 - Georgia Southwestern State University
2022-23 - Georgia Southwestern State University
2021-22 – Clayton State University
2020-21 – Clayton State University
2019-20 - Not Awarded
2018-19 - Clayton State University
2017-18 - (tie) Georgia Southwestern State University & UNC Pembroke
2016-17 - University of North Georgia
2015-16 - Columbus State University
2014-15 - Columbus State University
2013-14 - Armstrong State University
2012-13 - Armstrong State University
2011-12 - Augusta University
2010-11 - UNC Pembroke
2009-10 - UNC Pembroke
2008-09 - University of South Carolina Aiken
2007-08 - Georgia Southwestern State University
2006-07 - Armstrong State University
2005-06 - Armstrong State University
Thanks to the Peach Belt Conference for contributing to this article
