Grand Valley's athletic programs were the focus of a story in USA Today on September 20. In the story "Grand Valley is king of the hill," writer Andy Gardiner focused on the successes of Grand Valley's sports programs, which were the Division II winner of the United States Sports Academy Directors' Cup, the national all-sports awards program.
In the story, President Mark Murray was quoted as saying: "Winning the Director's Cup illustrates that there is a culture of excellence in the athletic department and makes it easy to give proof points that there is a culture of excellence across our academics as well...When you want to talk about (academics), the Director's Cup lets you open that conversation."
Grand Valley is the first university or college from Michigan to win the Directors' Cup in any NCAA division. Developed by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and USA Today, the Directors' Cup is the first cross-sectional all-sports recognition award for men and women. Points are awarded based on each institution's finish in up to 14 sports -- seven women's sports and seven men's.
The Lakers totaled 810 points, beating runner-up University of California-San Diego, which had 663 points. Truman State (Mo.) and North Dakota finished third and fourth, respectively. Stanford University won among Division I universities, Williams College (Mass.) won the Division III award and Simon Fraser (British Columbia, Canada) won the NAIA Division.
Grand Valley won the national football title in December, and was runner-up in baseball, third in women's cross country, tied for third in women's volleyball, sixth in women's golf and tied for ninth in women's basketball. Sixteen of 19 Laker teams advanced to NCAA Division II postseason play.
Laker student-athletes excelled in the classroom as well as on the athletic field, evidenced by 55 percent (233/424) recording a 3.0 grade point average or better. Grand Valley student-athletes notched an overall GPA of 2.974 for the 2003-04 academic year.
GVSU is the first Division II university east of Colorado to win the Directors' Cup. Also, the Lakers won their sixth straight GLIAC Presidents' Cup Award.
