All-Time Golden Wings Award Winners
By Mike Lehman, TTU Sports Information
COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Over the next two weeks, Tennessee Tech Athletics will recognize the best and brightest of its more than 300 student-athletes by releasing the winners of its 2020 Golden Wings Awards.
Kicking off this year's honors are the winners of the Female Freshman of the Year and Male Freshman of the Year awards. Named the Female Freshman of the Year for her efforts during the women's cross country campaign was Nancy Jesang. Selected as the Male Freshman of the Year was football's Metrius Fleming.
Jesang, who became the second member of the women's cross country team to win the honor in as many years, led the Golden Eagles in each of their five meets during the season. She placed first overall in back-to-back meets during the year, besting the fields of both the Upstate Invitational in Spartanburg, S.C. and Murray State Open in Murray, Ky.
A native of Eldoret, Kenya, the rookie save her top performance of the year for last, finishing third overall at the Ohio Valley Conference Championships in Edwardsville, Ill. It represented the highest finish by a freshman in program history and her time of 17:55.0 marked the fourth-lowest ever by a Golden Eagle freshman in 5K competition.
For her efforts, Jesang was named to the All-OVC First Team. Her showing at the OVC Championships tied for the 16th fastest 5K time in school history, matching a mark put forth by Golden Eagle great Stephanie Place.
Fleming made an instant an impact on the gridiron as one can make, rushing for a 66-yard touchdown the first time he touched the ball in his collegiate career. The wide receiver went on to lead the Golden Eagles with 47 receptions and 629 receiving yards, as well as 1,200 all-purpose yards.
The Elberton, Ga. native accounted for six total touchdowns, including three receiving, two rushing and one from a 91-yard kick-off return. His long trek to the endzone represented the eighth-longest kickoff return in program history.
Twice during the season he was named an FCS National Freshman of the Week Honorable Mention and claimed four OVC Newcomer of the Week honors. Fleming found his name among the nation's top freshmen as a member of the Jerry Rice Award Watch List and wrapped up his inaugural campaign with All-OVC Second Team and OVC All-Newcomer Team accolades.
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.
