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 Wednesday, the Golden Eagle tennis team was recognized as the Team of the Year. Also released was the Play of the Year winner, going to indoor track & field star Lisa Wickham for her showing in the 60-meters at the Ohio Valley Conference Championships.
For the tennis team, it represented the fourth time in five years claiming Team of the Year honors, sharing the recognition in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Stemming from its performance in the 2018-19 full campaign, the tennis squad finished with a 4-1 mark in OVC play to claim a share of the regular-season title.
The purple and gold then continued to build on its historic legacy, winning its fourth consecutive OVC Tournament title, a first by a team in the league since the late 1990's when Middle Tennessee claimed eight straight. Tech rallied after losing the double point, besting Jacksonville State with a 4-2 victory to earn its fourth straight bid to the NCAA Tournament.
It also represented Tech's 10th total OVC Tournament crown in program history.
Senior sprinter Lisa Wickham captured Play of the Year honors for her dominating performance in the 60-meters at the OVC Indoor Track & Field Championships. The native of Petit Valley, Trinidad and Tobago blistered her way into the OVC record books, shattering the previous 60-meter record by 14-hundredths of a second with a time of 7.27 seconds.
She finished a whopping 27-hundredths of a second ahead of the next closest finisher, which only truly can be comprehended by watching the video of her performance. For her efforts, she claimed an easy medalist honor in the event, standing at the top of the podium with pride.
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.
