BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Jacksonville State senior football student-athlete
Dalton Screws has been selected as the recipient of the 2016 Ohio Valley Conference Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award. The award will be officially presented on June 3 at the Conference's annual Honors Brunch in Nashville.
The award is given annually to an Ohio Valley Conference male or female student-athlete of junior or senior standing who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator Steve Hamilton. Criteria include significant athletics performance along with good sportsmanship and citizenship. The award is voted on by the Conference's athletics directors and sports information directors.
Hamilton competed on OVC Championship teams in each baseball, basketball and track while at Morehead State. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1958 and a master's degree also from Morehead Sate in 1963. He went on to have an 11-year major-league pitching career and coached in the minor leagues before returning to MSU in 1976 to become head baseball coach. He held that position for 13 years and compiled a 305-275 record while leading the Eagles to five divisional championships and two OVC titles. He was named Morehead State's Director of Athletics in July 1988 and served in that position until his death in 1997. As the A.D., Hamilton led the program to success on the field, in facilities and in the classroom. During his tenure, a weight room was built, an academic counselor for athletes was added, graduation rates of student-athletes improved and the University won the OVC Academic Achievement Banner four times. Hamilton is the only individual to play in the NCAA Basketball Championship, a Major League Baseball World Series (New York Yankees) and a National Basketball Association Championship Series (Minnesota Lakers).
Screws was the captain and a starter for the Jacksonville State football team that earned the school's first-ever No. 1 ranking (becoming the first OVC school to reach that mark since 1999) and became the first OVC team to advance to the National Championship game since 1982.
In the classroom he recently graduated with a 3.99 grade point average, earning a degree in biology with a minor in chemistry (he made only one B in four years of college). He has been accepted into UAB's Physical Therapy School. In October he was one of six awarded the prestigious OVC Scholar-Athlete Award (the highest individual honor given to an OVC student-athlete). Screws has been a two-time OVC Academic Medal of Honor and Commissioner's Honor Roll recipient and named to both the JSU President's and Dean's List and the National Football Foundation's Hampshire Honor Society.
On campus he is a member of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC), where has helped coordinate fundraising efforts for the Hoops For Heroes program. Away from campus he was spent the last six summers on mission trips with E3 Partners, traveling to Caracas, Venezuela and more recently Ukara Island and Magumu in the African nation of Tanzania. There he teaches the natives how to improve quality of life while also digging wells for fresh water and helping with providing AIDS testing and eye exams, all while sharing his faith. In the Jacksonville community he has also helped with Project 58 which helped pack more than 100,000 meals for those in need.
All of these accomplishments led to him being named the winner of the inaugural Doris & Eddie Robinson FCS Scholar-Athlete of the Year by STATS as well as one of just 22 players nationally (all levels) named to the 2015 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team.
The Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award is being awarded for the 18th time in 2016. Screws is the first Jacksonville State student-athlete to earn the award.
Other OVC student-athletes nominated for the award included Austin Peay's Breigh Jones (track & field), Belmont's Hannah Wittman (cross country/track & field), Eastern Illinois' Janie Howse (track & field), Eastern Kentucky's Luis Luna (cross country/track & field), Morehead State's Logan Hogge (golf), Murray State Jarred Koerner (cross country), Southeast Missouri's Megan Parks (cross country/track & field), SIUE's Mia Frogner (tennis), Tennessee State's Amber Hughes (track & field), Tennessee Tech's Megan Williamson (golf) and UT Martin's Ben Reeves (golf).
