When Commissioner Britton Banowsky released the Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll, it gave WKU Athletic Director Todd Stewart and President Gary Ransdell another reason to be confident in the school’s move away from the Sun Belt Conference. 

In WKU’s first season in the league, Banowsky recognized a total of 197 Hilltopper student-athletes for having a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better—placing them on the C-USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll.  

That is just more than 53.5 percent of the WKU student-athlete population. 

What is perhaps more impressive is the 56 student-athletes that received the C-USA Commissioner’s Academic Medal, awarded to student athletes with an average GPA of 3.75 or better. 

This figure was the most of any C-USA school—by nearly 10 student athletes.  Charlotte offered the second most academic medal recipients with 48, and Rice followed suit with 45. 

This means that not only did more than half of Western’s student-athletes exceed expectations and land themselves on the league commissioner’s honor roll (3.0 GPA or higher), but just more than 15 percent of WKU’s 367 student athletes were recognized as exceptional (3.75 GPA or higher) in the eyes of the league. 

Included in the list of both honor roll inductees and academic medal recipients are members of the now suspended swimming and diving program.  

Even better than WKU’s near 54 percent of student-athletes on the honor roll, the now non-existent swimming and diving program notched 61 percent of their athletes on the honor roll. Similar to the WKU total percentage of academic medal recipients, just under 15 percent of the roster pulled that mark in. 

With a conference-leading mark in academics, WKU student athletes are showing their competitive nature outside of their respective sports.v