Alcorn State's Davey Whitney To Receive Inaugural NCAA Award

INDIANAPOLIS---Davey L. Whitney, the legendary basketball coach for more than 26 years at Alcorn State University in Mississippi, has been named the first recipient of the NCAA Hall of Champions Journey Award.

Davey Whitney

The award was created to honor those who have encouraged excellence in collegiate student-athletes. To be eligible for the Journey Award, nominees must have:

• Inspired NCAA student-athletes,
• Championed the purpose of the NCAA,
• Established and maintained an environment that values cultural diversity and gender equity, and
• Exemplified the RICHER principles in their daily lives. The RICHER principles are the bedrock values of the NCAA Stay in Bounds program for youth in grades three through eight and stand for Respect, Integrity, Caring, Harmony and Excellence.

The NCAA will give a Journey Award (or awards) annually. George Smith, the director of the Hall of Champions, will present the award to Whitney at 1 p.m. Saturday at the NCAA Hall of Champions in White River State Park. The presentation will be part of the festivities surrounding the current traveling exhibit, "Discover Greatness." This exhibit contains the largest collection of baseball photographs from the Negro Leagues that flourished from 1920 to the early 1960s. The collection is on loan from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

Whitney actually played professional baseball with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Baseball Leagues as a shortstop from 1952 to 1954. Several other former Negro Leagues players also will be available at the Hall this weekend. Former members of the Indianapolis Clowns team and their batboy will be on hand from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday and from 3 to 5 p.m. Sunday. The Hall of Champions is located at 700 West Washington Street in Indianapolis.

Whitney has set standards that no other basketball coach has matched in the history of Alcorn State or the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC). He has a career record of 551-338 as a collegiate head coach and a career record of 496-275 at Alcorn State.

The oldest living African-American current head basketball coach in the NCAA, the 72-year-old has spear-headed more winning seasons than any of his predecessors at Alcorn State and was the first SWAC coach to lead his team to a victory in the NCAA Division I Basketball Championships. Notably his teams have participated in 12 national post-season tournaments, including five NCAA and one NIT.

On December 20, 1999, Whitney, affectionately nicknamed the "Wiz," reached a milestone in his storied career as a college head coach, when he became part of a select group of Division I coaches to reach the 500-win mark during their careers. In addition, Whitney, a graduate of Kentucky State University, has won SWAC Coach-of-the-Year honors nine times, and has ranked among the top-six coaches in America as an active coach.

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