BALTIMORE -- The Coppin State department of athletics held its annual Breakfast of Champions event Tuesday morning in the Talon Center to honor the academic achievements of its student-athletes.
Coppin State student-athletes were recognized for their outstanding scholastic achievements of the spring 2014 semester while eating chocolate-chip pancakes, eggs, sausage, ham, potatoes, fruit, cereal and muffins.
Shane Davies (baseball), Oleksiy Krylchuk (tennis), Candice Van Horn (softball), Kendra Ireigbe (volleyball), Cindy Okpegbue (volleyball), Kandace Thomas (volleyball), Carentxa Goede (tennis), Shena Brownell (women’s track and field) and Christina Epps (track and field) were each honored for achieving a perfect 4.00 grade-point average during last spring’s semester.
Headlining the group of 4.0 student-athletes is Epps, an All-American track athlete, MEAC champion and MEAC Woman of the Year. Van Horn, Thomas and Okpegbue earned all-MEAC recognition in their respective sports.
The Coppin State volleyball team earned the highest overall GPA for the 14 sports at 3.698, the fourth consecutive semester it has earned that distinction.
CSU student-athletes enrolled in the 2014 spring semester had a collective term grade point average of 3.012, marking the 12th consecutive semester since the appointment of Director of Athletics, Derrick K. Ramsey that the combined term grade point average has been above a 3.0.
“It makes me proud to see us continue our academic success,” Coppin State Director of Athletics Derrick K. Ramsey said. “I am most pleased with our commitment to academic excellence. While we’re happy with the accomplishments of our student-athletes, we’re not satisfied.
Our overall goal as a department is have a collective 3.2 overall GPA and to have an 80 percent graduation rate. We have to finish what we started seven years ago.”
Three programs had team grade point averages of 3.0 or better (volleyball, bowling and men’s track and field). Other superlatives included the men’s basketball team earning the most improved award for increasing its grade point average from the fall to the spring semester.
Sixty-four percent of Coppin State student-athletes earned at least a 3.00 grade-point average during the spring 2014 semester.