EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- SBU runner Michael McCampbell, who recently competed with his Bearcat teammates at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships, was the male recipient of the NCAA Elite 88 award. The new award recognizes the the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site of each of the NCAA's 88 national championships.

McCampbell, a senior from Marshall, Mo., carries a 3.963 GPA in biology. At the recent NCAA Cross Country Championships in Evansville, Ind., McCampbell finished 128th with a 10K time of 34:20.9. He helped SBU qualify as team for the national meet for the first time in school history. The Bearcats finished 15th out of 24 teams at the national event. McCampbell also competes for the Bearcats during the indoor and outdoor track field seasons.

"This award just shows how good Michael is, both on and off the course," said SBU head coach Corey McElhaney. "He works hard in all areas of his life. I'm very proud of this accomplishment -- for him, for our team and for our university."

“While an important part of academic reform has been to recognize teams performing at a high level academically, we also want to make sure to spotlight those student-athletes who have reached the  highest level of competition in their sport while achieving excellence in their academic pursuits,” said Kevin Lennon, NCAA vice president for academic and membership affairs.

Erin O'Connell, director of athletics at Seattle Pacific who was among a group of athletics administrators asked to help develop the honor, said the award epitomizes every NCAA institution's goal of educating and graduating student-athletes. “The spirit of the award recognizes what it means to be an NCAA student-athlete,” she said. “This award speaks exactly to academic reform in terms of pushing that we're students before we're athletes.”

(Information from NCAA.org was used in this story. For more on the Elite 88 award. click here.)