Team Records Cumulative 3.72

The California Central Section released its Winter Academic Award Ingraham Trophy winners and the Templeton Eagles boys basketball team tied for first place with fellow SLO County school Mission Prep with a cumulative 3.72 grade point average (GPA).

The Eagle boys basketball team ranked first out of the 48 teams that qualified in their own sport. Templeton head coach Andrew Cherry has his boys sign a contract before each season that starts with school first, followed by family second and the team responded.

“The one thing that I am okay with them missing practice for is school-related stuff,” Cherry Said. “I obviously expect them to balance things but it’s not surprising to have one kid every two weeks come in and say that he has a big test and needs to miss practice. I mean, it’s more important. Basketball is fun but we talk about it and the reality is that most of our kids are not going to college playing basketball and probably none of them are going to make a career out of it but what they are going to make a career out of is what they learn here, so school is absolutely first.”

Templeton was the only school in the North County to land a school in the top 10 and did so three times with the girls soccer team placing fifth with a 3.71 GPA and the boys soccer team placing seventh with 3.26 in their respective sports.

“THS is very proud of these athletes for setting the example for our entire athletic department that schoolwork and academics are the first priority, and athletics are a privilege,” Templeton Athletic Director Lindsay Franklin told the Atascadero News.