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 officially releasing the winners of its 2021 Golden Wings Awards.
As is the tradition of the Golden Wings Awards, the winners of the Female Freshman of the Year and Male Freshman of the Year awards are the first to be announced. Earning the 2021 Female Freshman of the Year honor was soccer's Selma Askildsen. Claiming the Male Freshman of the Year award for his efforts on the links was men's golf's Mark McDearman.
The first member of the soccer program to receive the honor, Askildsen was a rock on the backline for the Golden Eagles all season. Playing all 938 minutes for a defense that did not surrender more than one goal in any of its 10 matches on the year, she helped lead the unit to surrender just seven markers all year.
A native of Hosle, Norway, earned Ohio Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Week honors on Mar. 14 after helping Tech to back-to-back shutouts of Morehead State and Eastern Illinois. She led the team on the year in shots-on-goal percentage, with five of her seven attempts on target for a mark of 71.4.
For her efforts on the pitch, Askildsen was named to the All-OVC Second Team and also claimed OVC All-Newcomer Team honors.
McDearman turned in one of the best campaigns in the history of the Tech men's golf program, leading the team with a 72.42 scoring average over 12 rounds and four events. It marked the lowest scoring mark by a freshman in school history and the lowest by any Golden Eagle since PGA Tour Pro Scott Stallings last suited up in the purple and gold in 2006-07.
The Lebanon, Tenn. native secured a pair of top-10 finishes, including tying for sixth place at the OVC Championships to lead the Golden Eagles to a fourth-place finish. Steady as they come, the rookie did not turn in a round higher than 76 all season. In his collegiate debut at the Bobby Nichols Intercollegiate, he fired a season-low 69 to open his career and finished with a season-best 214 for the event.
The youngster earned places on both the All-OVC Team and OVC All-Newcomer Team, the first Golden Eagle ever to collect both honors in the same season.
The Golden Wings Awards, which enters its sixth 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. With the cancellation of last year's spring seasons due to COVID-19, this year's awards time frame became simpler than in year's past when multiple years were used to allow for a more complete and fair field of choices. This year, all awards were selected from the accomplishments from the 2020-21 athletic year.
Previously, baseball, softball, outdoor track & field, men's golf, women's golf and tennis nominees were selected from their prior year of competition to allow a more complete campaign from which to gather nominees. The annual awards show was officially cancelled for a second year due to complications with scheduling and COVID-19 protocols. Like the 2020 awards, the choice was made to still honor the student-athletes for their accomplishments from one of the most unique athletic years in history.
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.
