Aug. 11, 2010
BELLINGHAM, Wash. - With back-to-back top 10 national all-sports ratings, the two highest in school history, the Western Washington University athletics program is at an all-time high.
Giving those accomplishments even more credence are the achievements of Viking student-athletes in the classroom.
In the 2009-10 academic year, 30 Western athletes received NCAA Division II Athletic Directors Association Academic Achievement Awards for having cumulative grade point averages of 3.5 (4.0 scale) or higher, 23 Vikings were named national scholar-athletes and the WWU volleyball team earned a American Volleyball Coaches Association Academic Award, one of just two in the Western Region and only 55 in the division, for having an accumulative GPA of 3.31.
Two Western athletes - Gail Butler and Amanda Font - were listed among the school's Outstanding Graduates and another - Anthony Zackery - was a Presidential Scholar. The Vikings placed sixth in the 2009-10 Division II Sports Directors Cup standings (10th in 2008-09) among 310 schools, just three quarters of a point out of fifth, and first in the West Region. All-America honors were accorded to 19 Western athletes.
Western, which was 10th in the 2008-09 national all-sports standings, has had seven straight Top 50 finishes and been among the Top 100 in each of its first 12 seasons as a NCAA II member.
Leading Western in 2009-10 was the women's rowing team with its sixth consecutive national championship. That is the longest string by any school in that sport in all divisions of the NCAA. And, the 16 Viking rowers who went to nationals had a combined GPA of 3.1.
Providing the core of Western's success were its cross country and track and field teams. In cross country, the Vikings placed fourth nationally in the men's division and eighth in the women's division, the two highest finishes in school history. In indoor track, the women tied for 14th nationally and the men tied for 16th, and in outdoor track, both teams tied for 18th.
Pole vaulter Ryan Brown (Jr., Bellingham/Squalicum) was a national champion in both indoor and outdoor track, and distance runner Sarah Porter (Jr., Hockinson) earned All-America honors for the second straight year in all three sports, placing second nationally in cross country and being runner-up in the 10,000 meters at outdoor nationals.
Both Viking basketball teams reached their respective West Regionals with the men, who had their February home game with arch-rival Central Washington televised on FSN Northwest, getting to the semifinals where they lost in overtime to the eventual national champion. And the men's and women's golf teams competed in super regionals.
The volleyball team, which barely missed out on a trip to regionals and is just two years removed from reaching the national championship match.
Western won its second straight Great Northwest Athletic Conference all-sports title and its sixth in the nine-year history of the conference. The Vikings won league titles in men's cross country, men's golf and men's outdoor track & field as well as the Northwest Collegiate Rowing Conference championship.
In 2009-10 every head coach on Western's staff had been at the school for 10 years, led by the 25 seasons of men's basketball coach Brad Jackson and the 23 years of cross country and track & field coach Pee Wee Halsell.
