Team Sportsmanship All-Time Award Winners
BRENTWOOD, Tenn. ? On Tuesday the Ohio Valley Conference announced Eastern Kentucky University’s men’s basketball team as the recipient of the 2006-07 Team Sportsmanship Award for Men’s Basketball.
Voted on by the student-athletes and coaches of the respective sports, the team awards are bestowed upon the Conference squads deemed to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA. Included in the areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff and administrators and fans. The 2006-07 school year marks the second year the team sportsmanship awards have been awarded; Samford won the inaugural award last season.
“Sportsmanship is a core value of the Ohio Valley Conference,” said OVC Commissioner Jon A. Steinbrecher, “and the team awards are a primary means of celebrating those student-athletes and coaches who perform with distinction. Anytime you are recognized by your peers, it is truly an honor. Eastern Kentucky has proven that you can be successful on the court and do so in a sportsmanlike manner.”
“We are proud that our men’s basketball team has been recognized by its peers,” EKU Director of Athletics Mark Sandy said. “It takes a special group of student-athletes to win a championship with poise and humility.”
“Our coaches, student-athletes, administrators, staff and fans are most deserving of this prestigious honor,” EKU President Joanne K. Glasser said. “We take sportsmanship very seriously at Eastern and, throughout the season, their exemplary sportsmanship and behavior reflected great credit on themselves and the university they represent.”
Eastern Kentucky claimed the 2007 OVC Tournament Championship and faced up with No. 1 seed North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament. The title was the second in three years (and fifth overall) for the Colonels who advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time in school history.
“It is a great honor for our team to win the Sportsmanship Award,” said EKU head men’s basketball coach Jeff Neubauer. “The EKU community can be extremely proud of the way that our players competed this season. Mike Brock, Julian Mascoll and the rest of the team represented EKU well. This recognition by the coaches and players of the OVC will mean a great deal to our young men.”
Implemented in August 2005, the team honors are the most recent addition to an awards program that recognizes and celebrates sportsmanship within the Conference. In 1998, the league established the Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to a male or female student-athlete of junior or senior status who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator. Five years later, the Conference added the OVC Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to the member institution selected by its peers to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA.
In 1995, the Ohio Valley Conference implemented a first-of-its-kind “Sportsmanship Statement,” a policy promoting principles of fair play, ethical conduct and respect for one’s opponent. The statement answered the challenge of the NCAA Presidents Commission to improve sportsmanship in collegiate athletics, and has become a model for others to follow across the nation.