From left: Lyon College Athletic Director Kevin Jenkins presents the SLIAC Sportsmanship Award to Senior Women’s Administrator Kortney Cunningham.
In its first year in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SLIAC), Lyon College made an impression among conference members, winning the 2023-24 Team Sportsmanship Award.
The award is given to the school that receives the most points in sportsmanship voting throughout the school year.
Each conference-sponsored sport awards one team for exemplifying the best sportsmanship throughout the year. Lyon College won three individual Team Sportsmanship awards this season: Women’s Cross Country, Women’s Soccer, and Men’s Wrestling. They also had second-place finishes in Men’s Cross Country and Softball and a third-place showing in Men’s Basketball.
Overall, seven different schools took home a Team Sportsmanship award this year, and five schools finished with double-digit points in the award standings.
“SAAC has done an exceptional job this year taking on several different projects,” Cunningham said. “They have been very active and motivated. The SLIAC SAAC Challenge pushed our student athletes to get more involved in the community and on campus. The student athletes’ favorite community service projects were our canned food drive competition and our All Sports Camp. SAAC also hosted several events for the student athletes during D3 Week, which included dodge ball and water slide kickball.”
A strong spring of events launched Lyon College from third place after the winter season to the 2023-24 SLIAC SAAC Challenge Service award. Lyon finished the year with 18,159.5 points including 5,220 during the spring season. The Lyon SAAC group held several campus wide sport celebrations, put on a toy toss and canned food drive, and during D3 Week helped clean local roads in addition to holding a kickball event for the campus.
Coming in second place this year is Westminster College with 17,813 points. The Blue Jays softball team was heavily involved this spring, accounting for 2,413 of the campus’ nearly 4,000 spring points. They were held clothing and canned food drives as well as assisting at the Children’s Miracle Network event as well as trash pickup and tree planting.
Fontbonne University, last year’s winner of the award, finished with 12,810 points. In addition to student-athletes helping put on the annual Fontbonne Day, they hosted Special Olympics of Missouri in April.
The SLIAC SAAC Challenge Award recognizes the institution that went above and beyond in giving back to its community. The challenge tracks activities such as community service projects, collections (food and clothing), and donations.
The SLIAC presents three awards annually to recognize one of the fundamental principles of the Conference, and a fourth award that is presented as deemed appropriate by the Conference. The annual awards include an “All-Sportsmanship Team” and a team “Sportsmanship Award” for each of the 12 sports in which the SLIAC sponsors a championship.
The All-Sportsmanship Team will include one individual from each school that sponsors the sport. Coaches and student-athletes will select one member of their team who, throughout the season, best displays the ideals of sportsmanship that include fairness, civility, honesty, unselfishness, respect, and responsibility.
The Sportsmanship Award is presented to the team whose players, coaches and fans best exhibit the principles of good sportsmanship as voted by coaches and student-athletes in each sport.
Recipients of both the All-Sportsmanship Team and Sportsmanship Award are posted with the announcement of each sport’s All-Conference Team.
The final annual sportsmanship award is the “SLIAC Sportsmanship Award” which is presented following each academic year to the institution that receives the highest combined point total in the voting of the team Sportsmanship Awards.
The “Exemplary Sportsmanship Award” is a special award presented as the Conference deems appropriate. This Award will be reserved for those singular acts of sportsmanship by student-athletes, coaches, fans, or administrators that stand well above and beyond normal conduct. This year, Lyon College received the award.
Information and image via Lyon College
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