Each sports season, the Nevada Interscholastic Athletic Association (NIAA) presents a special award to varsity sports teams with the highest grade point averages.

According to the NIAA, the state academic championship is considered to be just as prestigious and noteworthy as athletic state championships. According to the NIAA website, “The NIAA considers this state academic championship award to certainly be equal to the athletic championship award.”

This fall season, Clark was awarded the Nevada Academic State Championship in both golf and tennis. Though Clark did not place in the athletic championships for either sport with their move up from Division 1-A to Division 1, they did maintain the state academic championship, which they also won in 2014 and 2015.

Clark’s rigorously education-oriented mentality always emphasizes academics first and foremost, and this mindset is also one upheld by the NIAA.

“As the Nevada Interscholastic Athletic Association, coaches and administrators should always stress, the competitors are students first, then athletes.”

We may have not been champions in athletics this fall, but you can always count on Clark student-athletes to take the W in the classroom.