The Mustang women’s basketball team became Morningside’s sixth winner of a Buffalo Funds Five Star Champions of Character Team Award since 2006.

Morningside College was selected as the winner of the 2014 Buffalo Funds Five Star Champions of Character Team Award for NAIA Division II women’s basketball.

The Mustangs’ women’s basketball team, coached by Jamie Sale, participated in Morningside’s “Into the Streets” campus wide community service project last fall by assisting teachers in their classrooms at Sergeant Bluff-Luton Elementary School. The team also filled and distributed grocery bags throughout the community in partnership with the faith-based organization Convoy of Hope, participated in the Hy-Vee Iron Kids Triathlon and the March of Dimes sponsored March for Babies Walk, and supported Irving Elementary School’s Walking School Bus program.

The women’s basketball team is Morningside’s sixth winner of a NAIA Buffalo Funds Five Star Champions of Character Award since 2006. Morningside’s women’s cross country team won the award in 2012 and the Mustangs’ wrestling team received the honor in 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2013.

The NAIA Buffalo Funds Five Star Champions of Character Awards are presented annually to one team in each of the NAIA’s 23 championship sports. The awards are presented to institutions and athletic programs that strive for excellence in and out of competition and are part of communities throughout the country dedicated to character-driven intercollegiate athletics.

The NAIA Champions of Character program is designed to instill an understanding of character values in sport, and provide student-athletes, coaches and parents the training to help them know and do the right things, inside and outside the sports setting. The program is dedicated to the principle that character is a choice and that being a champion is about reaching potential and making good decisions consistently in daily life.

The mission of Champions of Character is to restore character values and raise a generation of students who understand and demonstrate in everyday decisions the five core values of respect, responsibility, integrity, servant leadership and sportsmanship.