Christendom College earned the USCAA's 2019 President's Cup for Academics this past weekend, as announced by the collegiate sports organization. The award, which is given to the school with the most Academic All-Americans and whose athletes have the best GPA, is Christendom's first and a testament to the college's strength in balancing sports success with academic excellence.

College athletics are consistently challenging, with heavy practice schedules, frequent travel, and physical demands. Managing to perform well both in the classroom and on the field can be difficult at many schools, but Christendom consistently has shown an aptitude for teaching student-athletes how to carry both workloads not only effectively but exceptionally.

For the USCAA, Christendom fields nine sports teams each academic year: men's and women's soccer, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's cross-country, baseball, and women's volleyball and softball (the college's rugby team competes in a different sports organization). The cumulative GPA for all of these teams was 3.314 in 2018-19 — one of the highest cumulative GPAs in Christendom athletics history.

Additionally, 33 Christendom athletes were also named Academic All-Americans by the USCAA this year. To be an Academic All-American, a player must complete 30 credit hours and carry a 3.5 GPA or above — not an easy feat for any college student, but especially for a student-athlete.  In addition, two players were named Academic Player of the Year in 2018-19: Mary Margaret Heisler for volleyball and Emily Farabaugh for cross-country.

The President's Cup, a new award from the USCAA, is determined by three categories: total team/program GPA, individual team GPA for the top 5 teams, and total number of Academic All-Americans. Christendom excelled in all three categories, bringing another trophy to the college trophy case as a result.

The award is a capstone to a remarkable year for Christendom athletics, one that saw three National Championship berths, a #1 overall ranking for the first time, and numerous individual achievements that found players leading various statistical categories for their respective sports.