ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The Williams Baptist Men’s Basketball program has been chosen as the AMC Champions of Character Team®, the conference announced on Tuesday.
The AMC Champions of Character Team Award® honors one men’s and one women’s team for their exemplary character and sportsmanship on the field, on campus and in the community and is awarded to coincide with the newly created NAIA Conference Commissioners Association (CCA) Champions of Character® teams. This team demonstrates the core values of Integrity, Respect, Responsibility, Sportsmanship and Servant Leadership. Each AMC member school can nominate one men’s and one women’s team.
The Eagles were selected this year for their exceptional sportsmanship on the court that matched their high number of community service projects and participation numbers.
WBU basketball executed eight service projects and attended a team chaplain meeting every other Wednesday. The men did 13.5 total hours of team community service, including three hours a month dedicated to the team chaplain meeting.
In those service projects, the team never had any less than 12 participants serving. Additionally, they had 17 student-athletes come to a service project on four different occasions.
Their main projects included cleaning out flower beds on campus, assisting in the National Voter’s Registration Day, delivering holiday cards to a nursing home on multiple occasions, cleaning up the Southerland-Mabee Center, moving records out of the library, and assisting at the Fellowship of Christian Athletes Fields of Faith event. They also took the time to help move furniture out of a university faculty member’s home so that new flooring could be put in.
The selection marks the second consecutive year that the university has won the award, with the men’s wrestling program taking home the prize in 2020.
Williams Baptist men’s basketball is now eligible for the NAIA-CCA Champions of Character Team® award, announced publicly during the NAIA National Awards Day in September. The winner will be presented with a certificate and recognized at an annual function in conjunction with the NAIA National Convention.
This article was written by Kelli Heath, Sports Information Director at Williams Baptist University. It was originally published on wbueagles.com.