Illinois Baseball Earns 2025-26 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award
July 22, 2026 | Baseball
NEWS
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Fighting Illini baseball team received recognition for its work in the classroom by being named as a 2025-26 ABCA Team Academic Excellence Award recipient, presented by Sports Attack, the seventh straight season in which the team has secured the academic accolade.
During the 2025-26 academic year, Illinois posted a cumulative GPA of 3.48. A total of 17 student-athletes secured Academic All-Big Ten honors, while seven were tabbed with Big Ten Distinguished Scholar status. Sam Reed recorded a 4.0 GPA in 2025-26.
This year's award recipients included nearly 500 college programs and more than 320 high school programs from across the country.
To qualify, a program was required to meet the following criteria:
- Be a high school or college baseball program
- Have a head coach who is a current ABCA member
- Post a minimum cumulative team GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale for the 2025-26 academic year
The American Baseball Coaches Association has a long tradition of recognizing the achievements of baseball coaches and student-athletes. The ABCA/Rawlings All-America Teams are the nation's oldest, founded in 1949, and the ABCA's awards program also includes the ABCA/Rawlings All-Region Awards, the ABCA/ATEC Regional & National Coaches of the Year and several other major awards such as the ABCA Hall of Fame and the Dave Keilitz Ethics in Coaching Award.
About Sports Attack
Sports Attack was founded in 1995 in Reno, Nev., but our design and manufacturing folks pre-date the first wheel machines in the baseball industry, well over 50 years ago. With three active partners still heavily engaged, SA is proudly family-owned and operated. To say that we are manufacturers of quality sports training equipment just seems to not capture the essence of who we are. We do not just design our products; we explore, scrutinize, analyze and engineer our products. We do not just manufacture or assemble our equipment; we build each one from the ground up, by hand, the old-fashioned way. We view our suppliers through the lens of our mission statement, as a critical part of the design and development of our equipment. After fabrication and prior to shipment the equipment is tested thoroughly, every aspect of every unit. This ensures the product reliability on which our brand is built. Our process represents who we are; distinctive and exclusive design, detailed and quality manufacturing, resulting in innovative, highly effective training equipment. Our corporate integrity is a critical asset, and we are committed to upholding it worldwide. We set high standards and we abide by them as we practice business fairly and behave ethically. We wholeheartedly believe in, enthusiastically embrace and relentlessly pursue our company's mission. For more information, visit sportsattack.com.
