You don’t often meet a guy who hits the books as hard as he hits a volleyball. But Colin Kubinec has done exactly that.

Kubinec, of Trochu, Alta., is graduating as the valedictorian—the top academic honour in his class—at Briercrest College and Seminary in Caronport, Sask., with a GPA of 3.98.

He also helped his team, the Briercrest Clippers, win a silver medal in the very competitive Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference this year and a spot at the national championships in Toronto last year.

Kubinec had his first encounter with Briercrest College and Seminary at a basketball game more than five years ago—he was watching the Briercrest Clippers play Red Deer College, and he decided he’d like to play college ball with a Christian team. That fall, he enroled at Briercrest and joined the volleyball team, figuring he’d stay for a year.

He came back for four more.

Kubinec has loved his time with the Clippers. The highlight for him was going to nationals in 2008—the first time the Clipper Men’s volleyball team had been to nationals since they joined the ACAC in 1996.

Kubinec will return to Briercrest in the fall to begin an M.A. in Leadership and Management and play a fifth and final year of volleyball. He is one of only eight inductees out of a class of 93 into the Delta Epsilon Chi Honor Society of The Association for Biblical Higher Education. The top seven percent of the graduating class is bestowed the honour.