Southern Wesleyan Named Recipient of The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup for Second Straight Year
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Southern Wesleyan University has been named the winner of The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup for the second straight year.
In just its third year, The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup is the ultimate comprehensive conference award. The award recognizes the member with the best average ranking when combining the Hawn Cup, the Allan Sharp Award and the Messick Award.
The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup is named after the former Conference Carolinas Commissioner. Patterson served for 32 years as the Commissioner of Conference Carolinas before retiring after the 2018-19 academic year.
As Commissioner of Conference Carolinas, Patterson championed that classroom success and sportsmanship should be valued equally with competitive success.
In collecting The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup for the second consecutive year, Southern Wesleyan swept the Messick Awards (overall, men’s and women’s) and was named the recipient of the Sharp Award for the second straight year.
Southern Wesleyan has now swept the Messick Awards (overall, men’s and women’s) twice with the Warriors also winning all three awards in the 2017-18 academic year. Southern Wesleyan has now won the overall Messick Award twice (2017-18 and 2020-21).
In winning the women’s Messick in the 2020-21 academic year, Southern Wesleyan won six team Messick Awards. Southern Wesleyan collected the men’s outdoor track & field team Messick Award and finished among the top in numerous other sports in capturing the men’s Messick honor.
Southern Wesleyan has collected the women’s Messick honor three times now, while the 2020-21 academic year marks the second time they have earned the men’s honor.
The Conference Carolinas Directors of Athletics implemented the process by which the Conference Carolinas Messick Sportsmanship Awards are determined. A student-athlete and coach from each institution vote separately upon the sportsmanship of all conference competitors. Each institution then submits those votes to the conference office where the averages are then calculated to decide the winner for each conference-sponsored sport.
The Team Messick Sportsmanship Awards are named after John D. Messick, who was the President of former conference member East Carolina from 1947-59. Messick truly championed sportsmanship and even wrote a book entitled, "Personality and Character Development."
In collecting the Sharp Award for the second straight year, Southern Wesleyan owns an impressive Academic Success Rate of 91 percent. The NCAA Academic Success Rate is the percentage of student-athletes who graduate within six years of initial enrollment in college.
The Allan Sharp Award is presented annually to the Conference Carolinas member institution having the highest graduation rate of student-athletes as determined by the faculty athletics representatives.
The late Allan Sharp served for over 20 years as the Atlantic Christian/Barton Faculty Athletics Representative. Dr. Sharp championed the role of athletics as an educational activity and the importance of each student-athlete performing at the same level of excellence in the classroom.
The Body, Mind & Soul Dr. Alan Patterson Cup Winners
2018-19: North Greenville
2019-20: Southern Wesleyan
2020-21: Southern Wesleyan