All-Time Golden Wings Award Winners
By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee Tech Athletics continued its recognition of the best and brightest of its more than 300 student-athletes by releasing two more winners of its 2020 Golden Wings Awards.
On Thursday, two of the longest-standing awards presented by Tech Athletics were announced, the Female Athlete and Male Athlete of the Year honors, both of which were established in 1994.
Recognized for her record-breaking outdoor track & field season in 2019, Khemani Roberts was named Female Athlete of the Year. The Male Athlete of the Year honor went to baseball's Kevin Strohschein for yet another spectacular campaign during the 2019 season.
Roberts became the third track & field athlete to win Female Athlete of the Year in as many years, joining Purity Sanga and Na'Asha Robinson. She was also the fourth track & field athlete ever to earn the honor, with Stephanie Place representing the first to do so in 2009.
During the 2019 outdoor campaign, Roberts was unstoppable on her way to claiming Ohio Valley Conference Female Field Athlete of the Year honors. Three times she was named the league's Female Field Athlete of the Week, establishing program records for the high jump and heptathlon during her senior season.
The native of Bon Accord, Trinidad and Tobago claimed an easy first-place finish in the high jump with at the OVC Championships with a mark of 1.75 meters (5-foot-8.75), becoming the first Golden Eagle ever to win league titles in both the indoor and outdoor versions of a jumping event in the same season. She also claimed fifth place in the long jump and the 200-meter run at the league championships.
After winning the high jump event, Roberts advanced to the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field East Preliminary, narrowly missing a bid to the NCAA Championships with a 19th-place finish. During the regular season, she set Tech's high jump record of 1.77 meters (5-foot-9.75) and heptathlon record of 5,482 points at the Virginia Challenge.
Strohschein claimed Male Athlete of the Year honors for the third time in his illustrious career, becoming the first male to accomplish the feat in Tech history. He surpassed two-time Male Athlete of the Year winners Branon Vaughn (football – '99, '00), Willie Jenkins (men's basketball – '04, '05), Scott Stallings (men's golf – '06, '07), A.J. Kirby-Jones (baseball – '09, '10) and Eduardo Mena (tennis – '16, '17).
While becoming just the second baseball player ever to win OVC Player of the Year three times, the McDonough, Ga. native collected six All-American nods in his fourth and final season donning the purple and gold. He earned his fourth All-OVC honor and third First-Team recognition before eventually hearing his name called in the 21st round of the 2019 MLB Draft by the Washington Nationals.
In his final campaign in Cookeville, Strohschein spent the majority of the season rewriting the Tech and OVC record books and establishing himself as one of the best to ever represent the conference. He closed out the year ranked first in the OVC in hits (89), doubles (23) and total bases (161), third in batting average (.382), runs (57) and slugging percentage (.691), fourth in home runs (15) and fifth in on-base percentage (.447).
The outfielder finished 10th in NCAA history in career hits with 362 and 15th in at-bats with 1,009. Along with his hits and at-bats, his 247 RBI, 74 doubles, 62 home runs and 642 total bases all established new league and program marks for a career, while his 238 runs scored (three off the record) and 236 games played and started (one off the record) each finished as the second-most ever by an OVC player.
The Golden Wings Awards, which enters its fifth year, is an end-of-the-year award ceremony for the Tennessee Tech University student-athletes to honor and celebrate their academic and athletic accomplishments over the past complete seasons.
Due to the COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent cancellation of the remainder of campus activities for the 2019-20 academic year, the annual awards show was also canceled. The choice was made to still honor the student-athletes for their accomplishments, however, as each competitive season drawn from to determine the honors had been completed.
The timeframe of the awards period is the current season (2019-20 in this instance) except for sports that compete in the spring, including baseball, softball, outdoor track & field, men's golf, women's golf and tennis. With those sports typically competing with a large portion of their seasons still left at the time of the awards show, the previous campaigns (2018-19 in this instance) are recognized. The Man and Woman of the Year awards encompass the 2019-20 period for all sports.
Prior to the 2019 Golden Wings Awards, men's golf, women's golf and tennis were included from their current season, but due to scheduling conflicts and to allow a more complete campaign from which to gather nominees, the three sports were added to the rest of the spring sports in using its previous season for consideration.
Prior to the first Golden Wings Awards show, Tennessee Tech Athletics annually presented four awards to deserving student-athletes, including Male Athlete of the Year, Female Athlete of the Year, Man of the Year and Woman of the Year. The first honor established, for the 1990-91 academic year, was the Woman of the Year Award, coinciding with the first NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Two years later, in 1992-93, Tech established its Man of the Year Award. Both the Male Athlete of the Year and Female Athlete of the Year honors were added for the 1993-94 academic year. The four honors were officially adopted into the Golden Wings Awards, including criteria, for the 2016-17 academic year and all previous winners can also be found in the all-time list below.