THE LEE UNIVERSITY women’s golf team was awarded the National Golf Coaches Association All-Scholar Team GPA Award. The award recognizes the women’s collegiate golf program with the highest collective average team GPA of all student-athletes.
Lee’s six team members had an average GPA of 3.965. In only its fourth full season of collegiate competition, the squad composed of Madison Alexander, Geandra Almeida, Kristin Bourg, Chelsea Rakestraw, Courtney Shelton and Sloane Skinner.
The 2011-12 Lady Flames won 8-of-10 tournaments, including the Southern States Athletic Conference crown. They were ranked as high as No. 2 in the NAIA coaches’ poll and No. 8 in the postseason poll.
“We are honored to win this award for the second straight year,” said head coach John Maupin. “This team takes their academics very seriously, so this award means a lot to us. The ladies deserve so much credit for being dedicated to their school work, and battling through all the challenges that come with being a student-athlete.”
Maupin went on to praise the Lee professors. “I think it is also a credit to the professors of our institution. They play a major role in helping our team be successful in the classroom. When you look at the other schools on that list you can see why it is such an amazing accomplishment, as there are some excellent schools listed.”
“To win this award two years in a row is an amazing accomplishment,” Maupin added. “You look at the overall GPA of 3.96; you just don't see that for an entire team’s GPA. It is a total team effort, and our girls did a great job.”
Larry Carpenter, director of Lee athletics, called the overall accomplishments of the women’s golf team “remarkable. I am so proud of the job that coach Maupin and the teams have done the past two years. To win this prestigious award while finishing 10th and 11th at the national tournament is amazing. It shows the dedication they have to being successful and that they have their priorities in order.
“A couple of our biggest selling points to recruits are our professors and academic reputation and this is a great example of that,” Carpenter noted. “It doesn’t get much better than to have one of your teams win an academic award, beating out a couple of Ivy League schools such as Harvard and Brown.”
