GREENVILLE, S.C. – A regular season championship by the men's basketball team, as well as runner-up finishes by three other men's sports, helped the UNC Pembroke athletics department rake in the Joby Hawn Cup for men's sports for the 2021-22 athletic season.
 
The Braves finished in second place by percentage points in the race for the overall Joby Hawn Cup, trailing Mount Olive by just 2.2 percent. The Trojans bested the runner-up Braves by 9.5 percent in the women's Hawn Cup standings.
 
The Black & Gold raked in three conference titles in 2021-22, including Conference Carolinas Tournament championships in both golf and soccer, and closed out its return to the league with seven runners-up showings as well.
 
The Joby Hawn Cup is the annual all-sports award for Conference Carolinas. Hawn Cup points are awarded in each sport based on the order of regular season finish and the number of participating teams in each sport. The institution that finishes in first place is awarded points equal to the number of institutions that sponsor the sport. The institution that finishes in second place is awarded one less point than first place, the institution that finishes in third place is awarded one less point than second place, and the process continues until the institution that finished in last place is awarded one point.
 
In addition, bonus points are awarded to the tournament champion (two bonus points) and runner-up finisher (one bonus point). The total points earned from all sports for each institution is divided by the total possible points (excluding bonus points) for each institution based on sports sponsorship for each participating sport. Institutions are ranked by the resulting ratio of points earned to possible points.
 
The Joby Hawn Cup is named after H.C. "Joby" Hawn, who in 1962 became the first full-time Commissioner of what was then known as the Carolinas Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (CIAC) and now Conference Carolinas. Following his retirement from the league in 1976, Conference Carolinas began awarding the Hawn Cup annually in his honor.