KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Corban University, the Cascade Collegiate Conference (CCC), and eleven additional CCC schools were all named Champions of Character® Five-Star Award winners for the 2024-25 school year as announced by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) earlier this morning. This is the twenty-second overall occasion that Corban has been selected for a Gold, Silver, and/or Bronze Award, marking the seventeenth-straight year of earning one of the various award levels dating back to the 2008-09 academic school year.
"This recognition from the NAIA is not taken lightly, as our aim is to represent Christ well and to be teams filled with high character," Warriors' director of athletics Bill Pilgeram stated this afternoon. "Our student-athletes and coaches go the extra mile every day to achieve these high standards and this honor is well-deserved."
Institutions are measured on a demonstrated commitment to Champions of Character and earn points in character training, conduct in competition, academic focus, character recognition and character promotion. Institutions earned points based on exceptional student-athlete grade point averages and by having minimal to no ejections during competition throughout the course of the academic year.
The Champions of Character Scorecard measures each institution's commitment to the Champions of Character initiative. Points are earned in five key areas up to 100 total points. All institutions scoring 60 or more total points will be named Five Star Champions of Character Institutions for the academic year. For conferences looking to earn Five-Star recognition, they must have established a Champions of Character Conference Committee, developed a conduct in competition oversight committee composed of a minimum of three members, and have at least 60% of member institutions receive the NAIA Champions of Character Five-Star Institution Award.
All seventeen Corban athletic programs finished the 2024-25 academic year with at least a 3.00 cumulative team GPA for a second-straight year to register a department GPA of 3.35 among the 340 total student-athletes, which qualified the Warriors for Presidents' Cup recognition from the CCC once again. Earning at least a 3.00 team cumulative GPA qualifies all seventeen varsity sports for NAIA Scholar Team recognition. The Warrior men's cross country team led the male athletic programs in team GPA with a 3.47, while women's volleyball sat atop the female sports with a 3.70 GPA to claim the top team GPA in the department, narrowly edging out the women's cross country program by two 100ths of a GPA point.
Thoroughly committed to the Champions of Character model the NAIA embraces, the Corban athletic department engaged in numerous NAIA Core Value trainings including an annual book study within the admin staff, Association of Student-Athlete (ASA) discussions regarding Core Value implementation within campus, and attending local school fundraisers with the opportunity to discuss Core Value characteristics with future Warriors and potential donors.
In the community, the Navy and Gold attended numerous outreach and volunteer events including the annual MLK Serve Day conducted on campus, working within the homeless community alongside Be Bold Ministries and Project Living Hope, and even volunteering to host local high school track meets both at Corban and across the Mid-Willamette Valley. Due to the postseason success of the Warrior indoor women's volleyball and beach volleyball programs, student-athletes had the opportunity to engage in community engagement events within the local Greeneville, Tennessee and Sioux City, Iowa areas, including a Special Olympics event that the Corban women's volleyball team participated in following their national quarterfinal victory that clinched a second national semifinalist appearance in three seasons.
Also receiving NAIA Champions of Character awards was the CCC on the conference level, as well as fellow CCC full-time members Bushnell University (Gold), Eastern Oregon University (Gold), Lewis-Clark State College (Gold), Multnomah (Silver), Northwest University (Gold), Oregon Tech (Silver), Southern Oregon University (Gold), The College of Idaho (Silver), The Evergreen State College (Bronze), Walla Walla University (Gold), and Warner Pacific University (Silver).
To view the individual lists of institutions receiving a Champions of Character® Award from this past academic school year, click HERE.
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