DALLAS - In its inaugural year in the Big 12, Arizona State University’s athletic department has won the Commissioner’s Cup, awarded to the conference program that best combines athletic and academic excellence as well as its community service efforts.
“I’m just incredibly proud of our department,” said ASU athletic director Graham Rossini. “Most importantly, I think it’s a good validation that we’re on our way.
“It’s nice that the conference looked at not only athletic performance but also academic performance, community engagement and outreach. This award is a great representation of everything that we’re focused on.
“To do it in year one is a great indication of what we’re capable of and the leading role we want to take on in the Big 12.”
Commissioner Brett Yormark announced the award at the Big 12 Football Media Day Tuesday in Dallas.
“Congratulations to ASU president Michael Crow, Graham Rossini and the entire Sun Devil community,” Yormark said.
Four Sun Devil teams – football, men’s and women’s swimming, and volleyball – won conference championships last season. Four other teams – lacrosse, beach volleyball, men’s and women’s golf – were runners-up.
Rossini said the success across the board speaks to the depth of ASU’s athletic program and the ability of its coaches to adapt to the seemingly ever-changing world of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL).
“Our coaches have really taken on the changing environment that we’ve been navigating the last two-plus years,” Rossini said. “They’ve taken it with confidence and gusto. The world is more different than it’s ever been in college sports, and our coaches and staff have constantly focused on building new solutions and better outcomes.”
On the academic side, the average cumulative GPA for all of ASU’s student-athletes in the spring of 2025 was 3.37 and 48 percent of ASU’s student-athletes made the Dean’s List. In addition, 82 percent of student-athletes had a semester or cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher, and 135 student-athletes earned a 4.0 semester or cumulative GPA.
“Look, we want to win at the highest level. I’ve said that repeatedly,” Rossini said. “But the whole point of what we do is to prepare young people for the real world. When you see our academic progress rate and our graduation success rate continuing to grow at elite levels, that’s important to me.
“It’s easy for kids to transfer now. It’s easy for academic coaches to say, ‘Well, they’re not going to be here next year, so we’re not going to put in the same time and attention into them.’ But we don’t do that. We have athletes that are choosing ASU and an ecosystem in place that’s figured out how to get them to have success while they’re here.”