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.
On Tuesday it was announced that the volleyball team was named the Large Academic Team of the Year while the tennis program was honored as the Small Academic Team of the Year.
The large team included the squads with rosters of 15 or more student-athletes, while the definition of small team was squads with rosters of less than 15 student-athletes. The winners were determined by the highest team GPA spanning the fall semester of 2020 and spring semester of 2021.
The volleyball team claimed the Large Academic Team of the Year honor for the first time since the award's inception in 2015-16. The soccer program had represented the only winner of the award since then, claiming the title five straight years.
The first-time winners compiled an overall GPA of 3.54, turning in a 3.43 mark in the fall and a 3.64 GPA during the spring semester.
Tennis returned to the top of the Small Academic Team of the Year after the women's golf team earned the honor last season. It marked the fourth time the tennis program claimed the award, having won in 2016, 2018 and 2019.
The squad continued its remarkable work in the classroom, posting a 3.79 GPA during the fall semester and a 3.73 in the spring. Overall, the tennis team completed the year with a 3.76 GPA.
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.
