The University of North Georgia (UNG) Athletic Department cemented one of the most outstanding competitive years in its NCAA Division II athletic history this season with a 22nd-place finish in the 2024-25 Learfield Directors' Cup, the best finish in school history.

"Athletics is not just a point of pride but a powerful platform for developing leaders of character and building community. As one of our university's strategic big bets, we are investing in athletic excellence because we believe in its transformative potential and its transformative power. Transformative for our student-athletes, transformative for our fans and transformative for the communities we serve across our great region," UNG President Michael Shannon said. "Athletics elevates our brand. It engages our students in our North Georgia community and far beyond, as was the case this year."

The Learfield Directors' Cup was developed as a joint effort between the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics and USA Today. Points are awarded to schools based on each institution's finish in NCAA championships. The higher placement in a championship, the more points awarded to an institution.

The Directors' Cup counts the NCAA championship finish for 15 total sports in the final Division II standings. Institutions earn more points based on improved finishes at an NCAA championship, with a maximum of 100 points being awarded for a team national championship. While the Directors' Cup accepts scores from 15 Division II sports, only the scores from a maximum of 11 sports are included in each school's final standings. Institutions that offer women's volleyball, men's basketball, women's basketball, or baseball must include the scores from those sports within their 11 counted scores.

Despite having only nine scores included in the final standings, UNG posted the highest finish in program history.

"UNG's commitment to excellence on and off the field, its dedication to the student-athlete experience and its focus on becoming the most value-added Division II athletic department in the country has yielded some of the most impressive results in the country," Athletic Director Mary Rob Plunkett said. "North Georgia continues to become a household name in Division II athletics. The constant and rapid growth of the program's facilities, fan base, competitiveness, and desire to win has never been more evident than right now."

The Nighthawks were the only school in the country to have baseball, softball, men's golf, women's golf, men's tennis, and women's tennis all qualify for their respective NCAA championships.

Four of those teams (softball, men's golf, men's tennis, women's tennis) advanced out of their region and finished their respective seasons at their NCAA championship site.

The Nighthawk men's golf team was the highest-finishing UNG team this season, closing another historic year as national semifinalists. With a loss in the national quarterfinals, the UNG women's tennis team had the second-best year of any squad on campus, along with softball, which reached the NCAA championship site (Elite Eight) as well.

With its outstanding spring campaign, North Georgia totaled 396.50 points in the Directors' Cup standings in the spring season alone. That mark was the third-most among any school in the country behind only Tampa and Indianapolis, both of which counted scores for men's track and field and women's lacrosse, while Tampa (2025 national champions in baseball and women's lacrosse and national runners-up in softball and men's lacrosse) also added a score for men's lacrosse, three sports UNG does not offer.

North Georgia finished the 2025 season as the highest-ranked team in the country to offer just 12 Directors' Cup qualified sports, further displaying the rising level of success of each Nighthawk team. The Nighthawks were the top-finishing team in the Peach Belt Conference and second-highest finisher in the Southeast region.

In total, nine Nighthawk squads participated in an NCAA championship this season. That is the most in a single year in North Georgia athletics history. In its 20-year Division II athletic history, North Georgia has seen 81 teams participate in the NCAA tournament. An astonishing 36 of those, or 44.4%, have come in just the last five years alone.

UNG first made an appearance in the Directors' Cup standings in 2008, finishing in 165th place. As recently as 2016, the Nighthawks landed in 101st place. But the program's rapid growth and elevation of success has netted an improvement in Directors' Cup points in each of the last four years, culminating in this season's highest placement ever.