Ball State University Athletics
Women's Tennis Earns Honors from ITA For Seventh-Straight Year
September 07, 2005 | Women's Tennis
"It is with great pride to receive this award as a team," said Ball State head women's tennis coach Kathy Bull. "It is my mission, as well as my team's mission, to excel in the classroom and prepare ourselves for the future. It is a ringing endorsement for what we stand for here at Ball State University. My congratulations to the three individuals who achieved ITA Scholar Athlete honors. Their extra effort and hours of hard work has paid off."
Ball State is one of 86 teams -- out of more than 300 NCAA Division I schools in the country who sponsor tennis -- to earn ITA All-Academic Team honors. Two other schools -- Western Michigan and Buffalo -- join Ball State as the only three teams in the Mid-American Conference to receive the accolades.
The ITA All-Academic Team award is open to any ITA program that has a cumulative team grade-point average of 3.20 or above on a 4.00 scale. All eligible student-athletes whose names appear on the NCAA eligibility form and have competed in one or more matches are averaged into the cumulative GPA. To be eligible for ITA scholar-athlete status, a player must be at least a sophomore academically, be a varsity letterwinner and have a 3.50 or higher GPA.
Ball State's women's tennis team boasts a cumulative 3.41 GPA to rank fourth out of BSU's 19 athletic teams. Six of the seven players on the team compiled a 3.0 or higher GPA after the spring semester.
All three of the ITA Scholar Athletes -- Calderwood, Pollack and Thompson -- return to this year's team. Pollack boasts a 4.0 GPA as a journalism major, while Calderwood and Thompson own a 3.88 mark and a 3.75 as a dietetics and psychology major, respectively.
Ball State begins its 2005 fall season Sept. 16-18 at the Western Michigan Bronco Invitational in Kalamazoo, Mich.
