Continuing the tradition they’ve established since winning a national championship in 2010, the Eastern Washington University football team has won two more prestigious awards presented by the Inland Northwest Sportswriters and Broadcasters (SWABS).
For the third time in the last five years, the Eagles won the Team of the Year Award after finishing the 2014 season 11-3, winning a second-straight outright Big Sky Conference title and advancing to the quarterfinals of the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. Head coach Beau Baldwin was selected as the Coach of the Year, repeating the honor he won in 2010, 2012 and 2013.
It was only the fourth time an Eastern team has been honored since the awards were first presented in 1948. Eagle football also won the team honor in 2010 and 2012, as well as its 1967 football team, which was the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) runner-up that season.
Baldwin is the first Eastern coach to earn more than two Coach of the Year accolades, and his honor is the ninth overall for EWU. Previous coaches honored were football coaches Dick Zornes (1985 and 1992) and Dave Holmes (1967), as well as wrestling coach Curt Byrnes (1977) and basketball coach Ray Giacoletti (2004).
Also rare is the male Amateur Athlete of the Year awards won recently by Eastern athletes, with just five winning the honor in the last 67 years. Eastern won three from 2010-2012, but was honored just twice in the first 62 years. The athletes previously honored were football player Brandon Kaufman (2012), Bo Levi Mitchell (2011), football player J.C. Sherritt (2010), basketball player Rodney Stuckey (2007) and football player Scott Garske (1973).
Reader Comments(0)