SUWANEE, Ga. - After exclusive voting by head
coaches of each sport, the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference
(SCAC) announced its 2009 Coaches-of-the-Year for men's and women's
track and field and men's and women's golf.
Trinity University's David Svoboda was selected as
men's track and field Coach-of-the-Year in his first year at the
helm of the Tigers' track and field program. Behind eight
individual titles and a team victory in the 4x100 relay, Trinity's
men won their third consecutive track and field title at last
month's SCAC championship meet at Sewanee. Svoboda's men set five
SCAC championship meet records over the course of the weekend. As a
program, Trinity has won seven men's track and field titles - the
most by any school in the SCAC era.
Rhodes College's Robert Shankman was named the
league's women's track and field Coach-of-the-Year after leading
the Lynx to their second consecutive women's track and field title.
The Rhodes women won six individual events and the 4x400 team relay
in earning a 22-point win over DePauw. The award for Shankman is
his fifth on the women's side of the sport - having been previously
honored in the team's other championship years of 1996, 1998, 2002
and 2008. He has also been the men's COTY four times (1993, 1994,
1995 and 1996) - giving him nine total track and field COTY honors.
That mark ties him with DePauw University's Kori Stoffregen for the
most all-time track and field COTY awards in league history.
In golf, Jim Owen of Oglethorpe University was
honored as men's Coach-of-the-Year for the 10th time in 12 years.
The Petrels won their league-high eighth SCAC men's golf title at
this year's conference tournament at Tunica, Miss., and went on win
the 2009 NCAA Division III men's championships - the school's
first-ever NCAA championship in any sport and the program's eighth
consecutive Top 10 finish at the national championships. With his
10 men's golf COTY awards, Owen joins an exclusive list of SCAC
coaches (Paul McGinlay, Trinity - men's soccer and Steve Mohr,
Trinity - football) who have won 10 COTY honors in the same
sport.
Like Owen, Dan Ruyle of Southwestern University
guided his squad to a conference title and was rewarded with his
third consecutive SCAC women's Coach-of-the-Year honor. The
championship was the third straight for the Pirates and fifth
overall. Southwestern is just the second school in SCAC women's
golf history to put together a consecutive title streak of three or
more years. DePauw won five straight championships from 2002 to
2006. Southwestern went on to post a fourth place finish at the
2009 Division III championships - the second-highest finish for the
program in five appearances.
In announcements made earlier, R.J. Thomas of
Hendrix College was named the SCAC baseball Coach-of-the-Year and
Angela Froboese of Southwestern University was
selected SCAC softball Coach-of-the-Year. In tennis, DePauw's
Scott Riggle was voted the league's Women's
Coach-of-the-Year while Tom Cath, also of DePauw,
was voted Men's COTY.