Grossmont repeats as PCAC’s Chet DeVore Award winner

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - Buoyed by a state community college championship in baseball and conference or division titles or co-titles in six sports, Grossmont College won the Chet DeVore Award, emblematic of athletic superiority in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference, for the second straight year in 2016-17.

In his first year as Grossmont Athletic Director, Thomas Armstrong guided the Griffins’ athletic program to its third DeVore Trophy in the award’s eight-year history.

The Griffins swept the 12-college field with an adjusted total of 13.176 points scored by their 17-sport intercollegiate program. Grossmont finished with a raw point total of 224 points.

This was the second year that the DeVore Award standings have been determined by a formula that divides each college’s total points by its number of intercollegiate sports. MiraCosta College, with only six sports, finished second with an adjusted total of 10.000 as the Spartans’ state championship women’s beach volleyball team and North Division champion women’s indoor volleyball teams accounted for all of the college’s 60 raw points.

Palomar, the only other conference college to win the DeVore award three times, placed third with an adjusted total of 9.068 points (199.5 raw points for the Comets’ 22 sports). Fourth-place Cuyamaca, fifth-place San Diego City College, sixth-place San Diego Mesa, seventh-place San Bernardino Valley, eighth-place Mt. San Jacinto and ninth-place San Diego Miramar were the other colleges who had adjusted totals of at least 6 points.

While coach Randy Abshier’s Grossmont squad became the first PCAC college and first San Diego County team to win a state baseball title in 2006-07, coach Mitch Charlens’ San Diego City College team became the first PCAC college and San Diego County team to capture the state championship in men’s basketball.

The Mesa women’s swimming & diving team placed second in the state. Grossmont’s women’s indoor volleyball team, Palomar’s women’s basketball team, Cuyamaca’s women’s golf team and Grossmont’s women’s badminton squad were third in the state or state semifinalists. The Palomar wrestling team and Cuyamaca’s men’s cross country team took home fourth-place state finishes.

Mesa’s Danielle Garrido won the state singles championship in women’s tennis for the second straight year. 

The DeVore Award is named after the late Chester S. “Chet” DeVore, founding Commissioner of the Pacific Coast Conference. DeVore was President / Superintendent of Southwestern College in Chula Vista from 1961, when he supervised construction and development of its new Chula Vista campus, until his retirement as one of the nation’s most respected community college CEOs 21 years later. He became the first Commissioner of the PCAC, the host conference for community college athletics in San Diego County and Imperial County, in 1982. He served until his retirement from that post in 1998.

DeVore, a World War II hero and Purple Heart and Bronze Star recipient who left a long legacy both in academics and athletics at college, conference, state and national levels, died in January 2011. He was 92.