LEXINGTON, Ky. – The University of Hawai'i men's and women's volleyball teams were recognized by the American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) as recipients of the AVCA Team Academic Award.
 
The Rainbow Warriors were one of just 19 men's collegiate teams to earn the award for the 2019 season. It marks the second time in three years that the Warriors earned the prestigious national honor. Hawai'i was the only Big West Conference men's volleyball program to receive the award this year and the only school in the west.
 
The award comes less than one week after the Big West Conference announced its spring all-academic list which included nine Rainbow Warriors – James Anastassiades, Colton Cowell, Patrick Gasman, Rado Parapunov, Brett Rosenmeier, Dalton Solbrig, Stijn van Tilburg, Gage Worsley, and Joe Worsley.

The Rainbow Wahine were one of 189 women's NCAA DI teams to earn the academic accolade for their 2018 fall season. UH was one of just two schools to garner the national honor from the Big West Conference (UC Santa Barbara). Earlier this year, seven Rainbow Wahine earned Big West All-Academic Honors--Natasha Burns, Casey Castillo, McKenna Granato, Faith Ma'afala, Rika Okino, McKenna Ross and Skyler Williams. 

The award, which was initiated after the 1992-93 academic year, honors collegiate and high school volleyball teams that displayed excellence in the classroom during the school year by maintaining at least a 3.30 cumulative team grade-point average on a 4.0 scale or a 4.10 cumulative team GPA on a 5.0 scale.

The AVCA Team Academic Award is the single largest award offered by quantity of schools, players and coaches honored. Since the 2000-2001 season, the number of recipients has increased every single year but two, while more than doubling the total over the last eight academic years. Since the award's inception in 1993, the amount of award winners has increased from 62 to its current number of 1,125.