BOWLING GREEN, Ky. — WKU Athletics was recognized nationally Monday in a new performance metric for its improvement under Director of Athletics Todd Stewart.
In a new performance metric from AthleticDirectorU, WKU under Stewart's leadership ranked fifth in the country among institutions who have rated at least 5.0 points higher in the metric under an athletic director hired since 2010 than their 15-year institutional average.
Under Stewart, who was hired in 2012, WKU's AD performance rating is a 75.9, which is 12.7-point increase over the university's 15-year average rating of 63.2.
According to AthleticDirectorU, "this data set acts as an identifier of the strongest positive influences that new athletic directors have had on their institution's athletic successes."
"This recognition is the result of many special people working together and achieving successes in numerous areas," Stewart said. "I believe it validates that WKU Athletics is currently producing one of the nation's best success stories based on championships, academic accomplishments, and budget. No one in America leads their conference in total championships while ranking in the bottom 25 percent of their league in overall budget. Our student-athletes, coaches and administrators deserve tremendous credit for their efforts in maximizing our resources and achieving team superlatives on the field of play and in the classroom which have resulted in shining a bright light on our entire university."
AthleticDirectorU created the ratings system to assess athletic director performance, largely based on Directors' Cup results from 2005 to 2019.
The ratings system combines national ranking, conference ranking and total Directors' Cup appearances into one metric which scales from 0 to 100.
WKU is tied for 69th in this season's current Directors' Cup standings, which would be the university's highest finish on record if maintained.
Since Stewart took the helm in 2012, WKU has won 39 overall conference championships, including 27 since joining C-USA in 2014-15, which is nine more than the next closest league member. Since 2012, WKU has reached 13 NCAA Tournaments across all sports, 1 NIT Final Four (men's basketball) and six football bowl games (winning four).
Off the court, WKU has continued to shine with more than 700 student-athletes obtaining their degrees since 2012 and the department devoting more than 3,000 hours annually to community service.
In the NCAA's most recent Academic Progress Report, every Hilltopper and Lady Topper program exceeded the NCAA's mandated 930 APR minimum with 11 programs (out of 14) posting an APR of 970 or higher. WKU has also maintained the highest Graduation Success Rate in program history, with a Federal Graduate Rate that is 12 percent higher than the university's general student body.
All of this success has come while WKU ranks 12th out of 14 schools in Conference USA in total budget and 11th of 12 in revenue produced from student fees.
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