Prestigious NCAA Scholarship Awarded To Former UNI Star

Former UNI men's basketball player Adam Koch has been awarded the prestigious NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship.

Koch concluded his playing days at UNI in 2010 following a stellar four-year career that saw him named the 2010 Larry Bird Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) Player of the Year and the 2010 MVC men's basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Koch scored 1,186 points as a UNI Panther and ranks No. 19 on school's all-time scoring list.

The Ashwaubenon, Wis., native posted a 3.34 cumulative grade point average as he majored in biology/biomedical at UNI. Koch becomes the second UNI men's basketball player to earn the NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship, joining 1979 recipient Mike Kemp.

The NCAA awards up to 174 postgraduate scholarships annually, 87 for men and 87 for women. The scholarships are awarded to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition.

The one-time grants of $7,500 each are awarded for fall sports, winter sports and spring sports. Each sports season (fall, winter and spring), there are 29 scholarships available for men and 29 scholarships available for women. The scholarships are one-time, non-renewable grants.

The NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship was created in 1964 to promote and encourage postgraduate education by rewarding the Association's most accomplished student-athletes through their participation in NCAA championship and/or emerging sports. Athletics and academic achievements, as well as campus involvement, community service, volunteer activities and demonstrated leadership, are evaluated.

An equitable approach is employed in reviewing each applicant's nomination form to provide opportunity to all student-athlete nominees to receive the postgraduate award, regardless of sport, division, gender or race. In maintaining the highest broad-based standards in the selection process, the program aims to reward those individuals whose dedication and effort are reflective of those characteristics necessary to succeed and thrive through postgraduate study in an accredited graduate degree program.

Eligibility is restricted to student-athletes at NCAA member institutions who, in their final year of eligibility, have performed with distinction as members of varsity teams in the sport for which they were nominated. Nominees must have a minimum grade-point average of 3.200 (based on a 4.000 scale), be nominated by the faculty athletics representative or athletics director, and intend to continue academic work beyond the baccalaureate degree as a part-time or full-time graduate student.

UNI's Recent NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship Recipients