• All-Time OVC Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award Winners
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - Morehead State graduate student golfer
MacKenzie Neal has been selected as the recipient of the 2023-24 Ohio Valley Conference Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award.
The award is given annually to an Ohio Valley Conference male or female student-athlete of junior or senior standing who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator Steve Hamilton. Criteria include significant athletics performance along with good sportsmanship and citizenship. The award is voted on by the Conference's athletics directors and sports information directors.
Hamilton competed on OVC Championship teams in each baseball, basketball and track while at Morehead State. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1958 and a master's degree also from Morehead State in 1963. He went on to have an 11-year major-league pitching career and coached in the minor leagues before returning to MSU in 1976 to become head baseball coach. He held that position for 13 years and compiled a 305-275 record while leading the Eagles to five divisional championships and two OVC titles. He was named Morehead State's Director of Athletics in July 1988 and served in that position until his death in 1997. As the A.D., Hamilton led the program to success on the field, in facilities and in the classroom. During his tenure, a weight room was built, an academic counselor for athletes was added, graduation rates of student-athletes improved and the University won the OVC Academic Achievement Banner four times. Hamilton is the only individual to play in the NCAA Basketball Championship, a Major League Baseball World Series (New York Yankees) and a National Basketball Association Championship Series (Minnesota Lakers).
On the course she earned four All-OVC honors (only the third player in school history to achieve the feat) and become the first MSU golfer to ever earn five total All-OVC honors (when you include her All-Newcomer Award as a freshman). During the 2023-24 year she averaged 75.5 strokes per round over 29 total rounds. She also won her first collegiate tournament (the Colonel Classic) in her hometown of Richmond, Kentucky in what was her final college regular-season event. She would go on to finish sixth at the 2024 OVC Championship, the third-straight year she finished in the top six at the event.
In the classroom she was a four-time Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WGA) All-American Scholar while also earning four OVC Academic Medal of Honor awards for having a perfect 4.0 GPA. She was also one of six receipients of the prestigious OVC Scholar-Athlete Award during the 2022-23 academic year. Neal also earned four consecutive MSU Department of Science Dean’s List honors and won the MSU Celebration of Student Scholarship Exceptional merit poster presentation award. She is a four-year member of the MSU Pre-Medicine Club (and two year officer), a member of the Southeast AHEC STEPS Program for aspiring physicians, a member of MSU's Tri-Beta Biology Club and a five-year member of the MSU Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC).
In the community she was named the winner of Morehead State’s Laughlin-Miller Award, the highest individual honor for the year encompassing community service, sportsmanship, academic and athletic success. Neal compiled the most community service hours of any student-athlete at Morehead State. She participated in MSU’s Nine and Dine Fundraiser (which has raised money for eastern Kentucky flood victims), volunteered in MSU’s Learning and Tutoring Center as a peer tutor, with the White House clinic physician shadowing program and with the Feed My Starving Children program at Eastside Baptist Church (packing meals for children across the world). Neal also works at Boone’s Trace Golf Club during summer breaks, won the PJ Boatwright Golf House Kentucky Summer Internship award …
The Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award is being awarded for the 25th time in 2024. Neal is the second MSU student-athlete to earn the honor, joining basketball player Kandi Brown (2003-04).
Other OVC student-athletes nominated for the award included Eastern Illinois'
Chad Smith (soccer), Little Rock's
Matthew Fox (track and field), SIUE's
Alsadiq Hasan (soccer), Tennessee Tech's
Yao Giada Zhou (soccer), UT Martin's
Dylan Mott (beach volleyball/volleyball) and Western Illinois'
Maggie Craker (volleyball).