Each year, at the conclusion of the spring semester, I receive comprehensive academic progress reports from our student-athlete development staff and generally, the news I get is good.
 
Well this year the news was not just good - it was great. 
 
So great, in fact, that I feel the need to do a little bragging.
 
The overall cumulative spring semester grade point average for our 18 athletic teams was 3.22 and for the entire year it was nearly 3.2. That's higher than the general student-body grade point average.
 
Women's cross country's 3.6 team GPA was the highest of any sport and all but four of our teams had cumulative grade point averages near a 3.0 or higher. Our overall department GPA has held steady above a 3.0 for 12 consecutive semesters, which is quite pleasing.
 
There is more pleasing news to report - a lot more.
 
This year's academic progress report, released earlier this week, revealed four teams with perfect four-year APR scores (men's basketball, rifle, golf and women's tennis) and six with perfect scores for the 2016-17 academic year. We also had our highest overall score of 984, the third straight year we've accomplished this and once again above the national average.
 
Specifically, for the third straight year men's basketball had a perfect APR score, which is the fifth time in the last nine years under coach Bob Huggins that has happened. 
 
Football continues to make tremendous strides since the APR was first instituted in 2004. Our score of 977 in 2016-17 was the highest ever and increased our multi-year APR tally by 10 points. Over a two-year span, football's yearly APR score has jumped 55 points and the team's cumulative GPA for the spring semester was 2.96 - easily the best it's been since I became director of athletics in 2015.
 
By the time the summer semester concludes in August, another 85 student-athletes will have West Virginia University diplomas, including Bruce Irvin, who recently completed work on his sociology degree as part of our post-eligibility scholarship program.
 
A great deal has been written about what All-American Jevon Carter did on the basketball court, but did you realize that he was the CoSIDA's Academic All-American of the Year and was also Big 12 Scholar Athlete of the Year for men's basketball?
 
Did you know that seven Mountaineer women's soccer players earned 4.0 GPAs for the spring semester, or that women's basketball had six players listed on the Big 12's two all-academic teams this past year?
 
Did you know 277 athletes were recognized on the Garrett Ford and Big 12 commissioner's honor rolls with GPAs above a 3.0, which averages out to nearly 64 percent of our student-athletes?
 
Or that rifle's Elizabeth Gratz was recognized for the second straight year as the Elite 90 Award winner, which is the sport's top individual academic honor? 
 
Or that swimming and diving's Amelie Currat and James Koval were named Big 12 Scholar Athletes of the Year? 
 
Or that women's soccer's Bianca St. Georges and Alli Magaletta were Academic All-Americans?
 
As of today, our running total of Academic All-Americans is three with the spring sports competitors yet to be recognized; our number of academic all-conference selections is 104 and 22 different athletes have been recognized so far for their academic achievements.
 
This is truly remarkable.
 
It speaks to the high caliber of student-athletes our coaches are recruiting to West Virginia University; it speaks to the significant investment we continue to make in our student-athlete development program and it also speaks to the outstanding academic support staff we have in place right now at WVU.
 
All of these things have fostered a culture of academic success of which all West Virginians can be proud.
 
Sure, we want to win championships and compete at the highest level - that will always be high on our list of objectives. But along the way, let's not forget that we are also developing tomorrow's doctors, physical therapists, engineers, scientists, financial advisors, coaches, educators, attorneys … you name it. 
 
Whenever I run into one of our former student-athletes now thriving in life, which is quite frequently these days, that's just as satisfying to me as seeing our teams hoisting championship banners and succeeding on the playing fields.
 
I want to congratulate all of our student-athletes for their effort, dedication and commitment to excellence and I encourage them to keep up the great work.
 
And as always, Let's Go Mountaineers!