HILTON HEAD, SC -- Georgia Southwestern State University won their fourth straight Peach Belt Conference Presidents' Academic Award at Tuesday night's annual awards dinner in Hilton Head. This is the sixth overall award for GSW, giving them the most of any institution since the conference founded the award in 2006. The four wins in a row is also the longest 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