• All-Time OVC Team Sportsmanship Award Winners

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – On Tuesday the Ohio Valley Conference announced that the Eastern Illinois men's and women's programs are the recipients of the 2025-26 Team Sportsmanship Award for Outdoor Track and Field.
 
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, administrators and fans.

The 2025-26 school year marks the 21st year the team sportsmanship honors have been awarded.

This marks the third-straight award for the men's program and second award for the women's program (2024 being the other).

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.