A Stellar Season

With a school-record 13 of its 18 teams participating in postseason play, Baylor recorded its second-highest finish ever in the final U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup standings with its 32nd-place ranking nationally in 2005-06, which also placed it fifth among Big 12 institutions.
Last year's program-best, 25th-place finish coupled with this year's performance marked Baylor's best back-to-back finishes ever in the nation's all-sports sweepstakes. Stanford won the award for the 12th consecutive year.
The 2005-06 academic year was filled with successes on the fields and courts and in the classroom. Twenty-nine Bears earned All-America honors in their respective sports and 82 earned All-Big 12 Conference honors. In addition, four athletes earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors, seven were named to the Academic All-District VI teams, 56 earned Academic All-Big 12 Conference accolades and 371 were named to the fall and spring Big 12 Commissioner's honor rolls.
Jacob Norman captured the NCAA indoor 60-meter title, while Daniel Sepulveda (football), Sophia Young (women's basketball) and Ryan Baca (men's golf)'each earned their second All-America selection.
The Bears also captured three Big 12 Conference titles, the men's and women's regular-season tennis crowns and the women's tennis tournament championship.
Baylor totaled 511 points to place fifth among all Big 12 institutions in the national all-sports rankings.
In addition to the Director's Cup achievement, Baylor also had a school-record 184 student-athletes named to the 2006 spring semester Big 12 Commissioner's Honor Roll, including 25 with 4.0 grade-point averages
During the spring 2006 semester, 165, or 43.3 percent, of Baylor's 381 student-athletes had a 3.0 grade point average or better. The cumulative grade point average for all 18 Baylor teams over the spring term was a 2.92 with the NCAA Tournament entrant Lady Bear softball team posting a department-high 3.43 mark.
Sixty-three Baylor student-athletes were named to the 2005-06 Academic All-Big 12 teams, including 46 first-team honorees. Four individuals -- football's Daniel Sepulveda (first team), baseball's Zach Dillon (first team), softball's Kelly Osburn (third team) and track and field's Brittany Brockman (third team) received CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America honors.
The Big 12 Conference also selected Baylor student-athletes Phil Tran (football) and Sarah Hausner (softball) to receive two of its 24 Dr. Prentice Gautt Postgraduate Scholarships. The scholarships are named in honor of the late Prentice Gautt, a former Big 12 Conference staff member and student-services pioneer who died in March 2005.
Criteria for the awards includes a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 on a 4.0 scale, participation in at least two years of intercollegiate athletics at the nominee's institution and completion of athletics eligibility. The student-athletes also must graduate from their member institutions within 15 months of their selection for a postgraduate scholarship and are expected to enroll in graduate/professional schools within two years of graduation.