June 16, 2012
CHICAGO - BTN will recognize the best of Big Ten sports in 2011-12 with the fifth annual BTN Awards show at 7:30 p.m. ET on Monday, June 18. Dave Revsine, Mike Hall and Rick Pizzo will host the one-hour show.
The announcement of two prestigious Big Ten Conference awards, the Suzy Favor Award, for the best female student-athlete, and the Jesse Owens Award, for the best male student-athlete, will highlight the evening's festivities. The show also will feature interviews with selected award winners, both coaches and players.?
Penn State's NCAA Wrestling Champion David Taylor (St. Paris, Ohio) and women's soccer All-American and CoSIDA Academic All-American Maya Hayes (West Orange, N.J.) are Penn State's 2011-12 Athletes of the Year and nominees for the Jesse Owens and Suzy Favor Awards, respectively.
Penn State is the only institution with candidates for both the Big Ten Men's and Women's Coach of the Year, as well as the only school with candidates for the conference's Men's and Women's Team of the Year.
Nittany Lion basketball rising senior Tim Frazier (Houston, Texas), a 2012 first-team All-Big Ten selection, is one of four candidates for the conference's Breakout Performer of the Year. Frazier led the Big Ten in assists (6.2) and was second in scoring (18.8) and steals (2.4), leading the conference with 17 20-point games. He is joined as a finalist by Wisconsin's Montee Ball (football), Illinois' Whitney Mercilus and Indiana's Cody Zeller (basketball).
Nittany Lion wrestling coach Cael Sanderson is one of four nominees for Men's Coach of the Year, along with Indiana basketball's Tom Crean, Michigan football's Brady Hoke and Michigan State basketball's Tom Izzo. In three seasons at Penn State, Sanderson has led the Nittany Lions to Big Ten and NCAA Championships the past two years.
Lady Lion basketball coach Coquese Washington is one of four nominees for Women's Coach of the Year, along with Northwestern lacrosse's Kelly Amonte Hiller, Minnesota ice hockey's Brad Frost and Illinois volleyball's Kevin Hambly. In her fifth season at Penn State, Washington led the Lady Lions (26-7) to the 2012 Big Ten Championship, a berth in the NCAA Sweet 16 and the No. 9 ranking in the final ESPN/USA Today Coaches poll.
Penn State's Big Ten and NCAA Champion wrestling squad is among four nominees for Men's Team of the Year, being joined by the Ohio State basketball, Wisconsin cross country and football teams.
Coquese Washington |
The conference champion Lady Lion basketball team is among the three nominees for Big Ten Women's Team of the Year. The other nominees are Illinois volleyball, Northwestern lacrosse and Minnesota ice hockey.
Winners will be selected in several other award categories on the BTN Awards Show, including best finish and Game of the Year.
The Big Ten Network is available to more than 80 million homes through agreements with more than 300 cable, satellite and telco providers in all 50 states and Canada. Atlantic Broadband, Beaver Valley Cable, Cablevision, CATV Service, Comcast, Consolidated Communications, Kuhn Communications, Nittany Media, RCN, Service Electric Broadband, Service Electric Cable TV & Communications, Service Electric Cablevision, Shen-Heights TV, Time-Warner Cable, Windstream, Zampelli Electronics and Zito Media are among the Pennsylvania cable providers who carry BTN.
Armstrong, Blue Ridge and Adams Cable, though, do not carry the Big Ten Network in Pennsylvania and the Medina and Youngstown, Ohio areas. More than 35,000 Penn State alumni live in the communities served by the three cable providers in Pennsylvania and the Medina and Youngstown areas, in addition to thousands more fans and current Penn State students.
Armstrong, Blue Ridge and Adams Cable customers missed more than 110 Penn State events on BTN during the 2011-12 academic year, in addition to coverage from 15 conference championships.
BTN will carry multiple Penn State football games this season, including the Oct. 20 primetime game at Iowa (8 pm ET).