Arkansas Sports 360 - ArkansasSports360.com

7/1/2010 at 4:03pm

Athletic director Jeff Long and associate AD for academic support Melissa Harwood Rohm had praise for the Razorbacks baseball program when the NCAA released Academic Progress Rates earlier this summer. Both indicated the program had made huge strides academically under coach Dave Van Horn's leadership the past few seasons.

Judging from the 954 APR score posted by baseball and the SEC's spring sport academic honor roll, it's easy to understand why. The Diamond Hogs, who advanced to an NCAA Super Regional, placed a number of notable names on the list, including all-American third baseman Zack Cox.

Other baseball Razorbacks of note included pitchers Jordan Pratt and Geoffery Davenport and catcher James McCann.

Track had the most entries from Arkansas with 14 of the 53 on the list. Included are a number of athletes we've highlighted this year, including:

*Track/cross country all-American Dorian Ulrey
*Thrower Justin Holmes, who is in Egypt with the ROTC this summer
*All-American pole vaulter Katie Stripling

The SEC's official site has a list of all 938 athletes honored. Below is a breakdown of how the team works:

The SEC Spring Honor Roll is based on grades from the 2009 summer, fall and 2010 spring terms.  Student-athletes must meet five criteria including having a grade point average for the preceding year or as a cumulative average, summer school must be including in the calculation if the student-athlete attends, eligibility for the honor roll is open to scholarship and non-scholarship student-athlete, student-athletes must have completed 24 semester or 36 quarter hours of non-remedial academic credit toward a degree and the student-athlete must have been a member of a varsity team for the sport's entire NCAA Championship season.

In this context, the phrase "student-athlete" seems a little more realistic, right?