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HomeSportsAPSU Volleyball receives OVC Team Sportsmanship Award

APSU Volleyball receives OVC Team Sportsmanship Award

APSU Women's VolleyballBrentwood, TN – For the third time in program history, Austin Peay State University’s volleyball team was the recipient of the Ohio Valley Conference’s Team Sportsmanship Award.
 
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.

Austin Peay State University Women's Volleyball has been names OVC Team Sportsmanship Award winner. (APSU Sports Information)
Austin Peay State University Women’s Volleyball has been names OVC Team Sportsmanship Award winner. (APSU Sports Information)

Included in the areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff and administrators and fans.
                 
“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,” DeBauche stated.

“At Austin Peay we intend to win with class as representatives of this great university,” said Austin Peay State University Director of Athletics Gerald Harrison. “We expect our student-athletes to lead in this area and head coach Taylor Mott and her team are great examples of this idea. They have been champions on the court two of the last three seasons and they continue to represent themselves and this university the right way.”
 
The 2019-20 school year marks the 15th year the team sportsmanship honors have been awarded. This marks the third award for the APSU program (2006, 2008, 2019).
 
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.

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