Award Recipient Epitomizes the Consummate Student-Athlete
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Fellowship of Christian Athletes honored Oklahoma University’s Ty Darlington with the 2015 Bobby Bowden Award at a luncheon earlier this week at the Petroleum Club in Oklahoma City.
The award’s namesake was in attendance, and said of Darlington, “They have (awards) for blocking and they have them for tackling and they have them for everything else. So here’s one for character; academics, behaving yourself and athletic talent. (Ty’s) got all three of them.”
Darlington, an Apopka, Fla., native who attended Apopka High School, has been honored with three national awards in as many months. Besides FCA’s Bobby Bowden Award, he was named the winner of the National Football Foundation’s Campbell Trophy as the nation’s most outstanding football scholar-athlete and was also honored with the Wuerffel Trophy, which is college football’s premier award for community service.
“FCA congratulates Ty Darlington on the 2015 Bobby Bowden Award,” said FCA President and CEO Les Steckel. “It is amazing to see young athletes pour their entire body, mind and spirit into their passions—and to impact the world for good at the same time.”
In 2015, Darlington was also a finalist for the Senior CLASS Award, named honorable mention All-American by Sports Illustrated, selected to All-Big 12 First Team by league’s coaches, and was chosen for All-Big 12 Second Team by the Associated Press and as a CoSIDA Academic All-American. Darlington was also named the Big 12 Football Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was wont OU’s Bob Kalsu Award. This season, Darlington started 12 games for the Sooners at center, missing just the Sept. 19 game against Tulsa due to injury.
“The FCA has been such a big part of my development, and that’s why this is so special,” Darlington said at the luncheon, noting that his parents met through FCA. “I’ve been able to sort of come into my own as a leader as I’ve been able to have the opportunities through FCA here (in Oklahoma). I was willing to push the limits of my own potential a little bit and watch as God used different people to shape me and mold me into a leader and a man.”
As part of the Sooners for Haiti group at OU, Darlington has traveled to Haiti three times for volunteer work.
“I am a big believer in the platform that student-athletes have,” said Darlington, quoted by Oklahoma media. “A lot of athletes don’t realize the power and influence you have just because of a jersey, and not because of the name on the back of a jersey but because of the name on the front. We have a unique ability that few others do to be able to make someone’s day, whether it be signing an autograph or taking a picture, or shaking a hand during a two-minute hospital visit. Or something so small and insignificant in our eyes but still makes a great impact on other people. So I want more athletes to be able to realize that and use that platform to its full potential.”
A son of Rick and Shelly Darlington, Ty graduated from OU’s arts and sciences planned program (health promotion emphasis) and will earn his master’s degree in adult and higher education (intercollegiate athletics administration emphasis) this spring. His father is the head coach at Apopka, his mother was an OU cheerleader as an undergraduate, and his brother, Zack, is a quarterback at Nebraska.
The Bobby Bowden Award, named after the former Florida State coaching great, is presented annually to a Football Bowl Subdivision football player who epitomizes a student-athlete and conducts “himself as a faith model in the classroom, on the field, on campus and in the community.” Nominees must also carry at least a 3.0 GPA.
Past Bobby Bowden Award winners are:
2003 Jason Wright Northwestern University
2004 Billy Bajema Oklahoma State University
2005 D.J. Shockley University of Georgia
2006 Carl Pendleton University of Oklahoma
2007 Jacob Tamme University of Kentucky
2008 Stephen McGee Texas A&M
2009 Colt McCoy University of Texas
2010 Christian Ponder Florida State University
2011 Case Keenum University of Houston
2012 Ashton Richardson Auburn University
2013 Jake Matthews Texas A&M
2014 Bryce Petty Baylor University
Bobby Bowden, former longtime head coach at Florida State University, amassed a career head coaching record of 410-141-1 and is the winningest coach in major college football. The award, sponsored by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, was conceived by Vince Gibson, a former Bowden assistant at South Georgia College who went on to become head coach at Kansas State, Louisville and Tulane before he passed away in 2012 from Lou Gehrig’s disease; and Vernon Brinson, one of Bowden’s former players at South Georgia College in the 1950s.