COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee Tech University is the recipient of the 2015-16 Ohio Valley Conference Team Sportsmanship Award for football, the league office announced on Wednesday.
 
Voted on by the student-athletes and coaches of the respective sports, the team awards are bestowed upon the Conference squads deemed to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA. Included in the areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff and administrators and fans.

"We are very proud of our football student-athletes and coaching staff for earning the OVC Sportsmanship Award," said Tennessee Tech Director of Athletics Mark Wilson. "This recognition is an illustration of the first class individuals that make up Golden Eagle football."
 
The 2015-16 school year marks the 11th year the team sportsmanship honors have been awarded.

"Without sportsmanship there are truly no meaningful victories," said Beth DeBauche, OVC Commissioner. "The recipients of the OVC Team Sportsmanship awards should accept this award with great pride for their fellow competitors have made it clear their teams exemplify the best in intercollegiate athletics. In receiving this prestigious honor other competitors are saying these student-athletes compete with class, respect their opponents and value fair play. That is quite a compliment as those are all traits that will lead to true victories throughout the course of life."
 
The Golden Eagles finished the 2015 season with a 4-7 overall and 3-5 record in Conference play. Following the season head coach Watson Brown announced this retirement after nine seasons with the program, 31 years overall as a head coach and a total of 43 seasons as a collegiate coach.

"We have always tried to recruit the type of young man who is the right fit for the university, and that includes the maturity to display good sportsmanship," Brown said. "This award reflects the fact that our kids played the game the right way, and that our coaching staff developed in each of them a sense of fair play and respect for their university, the conference, their opponent and the opportunty to play college football."
 
Implemented in August 2005, the team honors are the most recent addition to an awards program that recognizes and celebrates sportsmanship within the Conference. In 1998, the league established the Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to a male or female student-athlete of junior or senior status who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator. Five years later, the Conference added the OVC Sportsmanship Award, presented annually to the member institution selected by its peers to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA.
 
In 1995, the Ohio Valley Conference implemented a first-of-its-kind "Sportsmanship Statement," a policy promoting principles of fair play, ethical conduct and respect for one's opponent.  The statement answered the challenge of the NCAA Presidents Commission to improve sportsmanship in collegiate athletics, and has become a model for others to follow across the nation.