Wake Tech places 16 student-athletes on NJCAA All-Academic team

Wake Technical Community College put 16 student-athletes on the NJCAA All-Academic Team for the 2025-26 academic year, a July 29 announcement that fits a department where classroom results keep showing up alongside competition. The Eagles operate nine athletic programs in Raleigh, including men's and women's basketball, so the academic news reaches well beyond one roster.

The 16 honorees landed on a national list that kept getting bigger. The NJCAA said 13,723 student-athletes earned All-Academic Team recognition in 2025-26 with GPAs of 3.60 or higher, while 1,446 teams earned Academic Team of the Year honors by posting at least a 3.00 team GPA. That total rose from 12,245 in 2023-24, 10,267 in 2022-23 and 9,912 in 2021-22, a steady climb that shows how many junior-college athletes are meeting a high bar in classrooms as well as gyms.

Wake Tech's own history makes the latest count harder to write off as a one-year spike. The college previously said 17 Eagles earned NJCAA academic recognition for the 2022-23 academic year, and on Aug. 5, 2025, Wake Tech Athletics said its baseball and softball teams were named NJCAA Academic Teams of the Year after keeping a team GPA above 3.0 across the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters. When one department keeps producing academic hardware across different sports, it points to something more durable than a good semester.

That is the part basketball programs should pay attention to. Junior-college hoops runs on short timelines, with players trying to stay eligible, stack credits and earn a next stop in just a season or two. Wake Tech's numbers suggest a culture where the classroom is part of the recruiting pitch and part of the daily expectation, not a side note added after practice. For JUCO programs trying to build something sustainable, 16 academic honorees in one year, 17 in another, and team awards in other sports are the kind of receipts that matter.