TAMPA-  After nearly winning the 2009 BIG EAST Championship on the field, the USF baseball team has earned a title in the classroom.

The University of South Florida baseball team has been awarded the 2008-09 BIG EAST Team Academic Excellence Awards for its efforts in the classroom this past year.

“Our guys raised the bar in the classroom,” said Bulls head coach Lelo Prado. “Its shows the work they put in and the people in our academic services, Justin and Herb. The players have to take credit. They stepped up. We put some new policies in, and they bought into it.”

Prado and his staff instituted some new standards and it didn’t take long for the Bulls to embrace the new policies.

“The first year, we just wanted to see what we had,” said Prado. “Last year, we had a bunch of freshmen. This year we put some things in, where if you miss tutoring you miss practice, you miss class you miss games. It worked and the team bought into it. They saw it as a competition and today we see the success that came from their hard work.  It is a great sign for the future of this program, because most of these outstanding student-athlete will be back in 2010.”

The Bulls, who finished the second in the BIG EAST regular season standings, compiled an impressive 3.2 team GPA this past fall followed by a 3.21 this past spring.

“The baseball team, over the past year, has seen a transformation in their focus and their drive in the classroom and winning this award is a testament to that,” said Justin Miller, Assistant Athletic Director for Academics and Student-Athlete Development. “They have been able to exceed expectations in the classroom with a 3.21 GPA in the spring. It is amazing for any sport, much less a sport that this is the highest they have ever been in program history. It certainly speaks to Coach Prado and his staff support for the student athletes on this team and the hard work of the student athletes. “

The winners were chosen based on the 2008-09 grade-point average of each student-athlete that appears on an institution’s squad list in a particular sport.

Click here to View Other Winners on BIGEAST.org