PHOENIX – Texas A&M sprinter Deon Lendore is one of three finalist for The Bowerman Award and the winner will be announced Wednesday evening during the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association convention.
The Bowerman Award, which made its debut in 2009, is collegiate track and field's highest individual honor. It is awarded to the most outstanding male and female collegiate track and field star of the 2014 season.
Coverage of the The Bowerman Award will be available on a webcast starting at 7:25 p.m. (CT) at the following link: http://www.thebowerman.org
Joining Lendore as a finalist for the men's award is a pair of distance runners in Arizona's Lawi Lalang and Oregon's Edward Cheserek. The women's finalists include Courtney Okolo of Texas, Arkansas State's Sharika Nelvis and Oregon's Laura Roesler.
In a fan vote during the summer Lendore and Roesler were the top selections. Lendore notched 52.56 percent of the men's vote with 8,812 total votes, the most votes attained for either gender. Roesler had 41.71 percent of the women's vote with 8,239 total votes.
Lendore is the third Aggie and first A&M male to be a Bowerman finalist. Porscha Lucas was a finalist in 2009 while Jessica Beard won the prestigious award in 2011. Beard will be one of three former winners in attendance during Wednesday's ceremony along with Virginia Tech's Queen Harrison (2010 winner) and Clemson's Brianna Rollins (2013 winner).
An impressive 2014 campaign by Lendore during his junior season with the Aggies included a sweep of the NCAA titles in the 400 meters. In claiming his third set of conference titles in the 400 meters Lendore improved his indoor school record to 45.03 seconds and posted a 44.36 outdoors to break a 45-year-old A&M school record of 44.67 established by Curtis Mills in winning the 1969 NCAA Championship.
In addition to defending his SEC titles in the 400, Lendore added three conference relay victories in 2014. During the indoor conference meet Lendore anchored the Aggie 4x400 to a collegiate record of 3:03.20 with a split of 44.63 seconds, the fastest-ever recorded by a collegian indoors.
At the outdoor conference meet Lendore anchored A&M to a pair of SEC Championship records in winning the 4x100 (38.50) and 4x400 (3:01.19). Lendore also anchored three Aggie school record efforts during the outdoor campaign in the 4x100 (38.30), 4x200 (1:20.29) and 4x400 (2:59.60). Those performances rank equal fourth, fourth and second, respectively, on the collegiate all-time lists.
The 4x400 school record occurred during the NCAA Championships when Lendore split a sizzling 44.10 seconds as A&M won the race with the second-fastest collegiate time ever, missing the collegiate record by one-hundredth of a second.