NEW ORLEANS – Eastern Illinois head football coach Dino Babers was one of the recipients of the Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., Salute to Excellence Award presented by the Fritz Pollard Alliance at a recent banquet in New Orleans.  Babers just completed his first season as the Panthers head coach earning Ohio Valley Conference and AFCA Region 3 Coach of the Year honors while placing third in voting for the Eddie Robinson FCS Coach of the Year Award.  EIU was 7-5 advancing to the NCAA FCS Playoffs for the 14th time as the OVC regular-season champions.

The Salute to Excellence Award is given to persons who display outstanding performance through the year on the field and in front offices in the National Football League.  The award is named in honor Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., one of the co-founders of the Fritz Pollard Alliance that passed away in 2005.

The Fritz Pollard Alliance has held this Annual Salute to Excellence Award since 2006 presenting the first awards at that year's Super Bowl to Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith, Indianapolis Colts head coach Tony Dungy and Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis.

Pollard grew up in Rogers Park, Ill., where he was a three-sport athlete at Lane Tech High.  He went on to play college football at Brown University earning legendary status by compiling a list of firsts… the first African-American player to lead his team to a Rose Bowl (1916), the first African-American player named to the Walter Camp All-America team as a back and the first African-American player selected to the National College Football Hall of Fame in 1954.  He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2005 after he was the first African-American player to play on a championship team in 1920, first to serve as a head coach (1921) and first to play quarterback (1923).

Additional FCS coaches earning the Salute to Excellence Award this year include Monte Coleman of Arkansas Pine Bluff, Rick Comegy of Jackson State and Brian Jenkins of Bethune-Cookman.