Vanderbilt University baseball coach Tim Corbin has received the United States Sports Academy’s 2020 Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award in recognition of his successful tenure leading the Commodores to a pair of national championships (2014, 2019) and more than 750 wins in 19 seasons in Nashville.

Corbin was presented the award in Nashville, Tenn., before his Commodores baseball team played a home game on the Vanderbilt campus by Academy Trustee and University of Tennessee Athletics Director Emerita Joan Cronan. The presentation had been held in abeyance since 2020 due to COVID-19 social distancing requirements.

During his tenure at Vanderbilt, Corbin has turned the Commodores from a perennial Southeastern Conference doormat into a national power. Before his arrival on campus, the Commodores had only posted six winning seasons since baseball became a scholarship sport at the school in 1968. His record prior to the 2021 season of 753-359-1 (.677) is first all-time in wins at Vanderbilt and first in winning percentage for coaches with 100 games or more. In his career as a head coach Corbin is 859-497-1 (.633). Corbin’s efforts have paid off in the win column and across the board as D1Baseball.com tabbed Vanderbilt the top program in the nation in 2015 and second in 2017 and 2019.

In January 2020, Corbin was inducted into the American Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2020. Corbin was among six individuals to be enshrined at the 76th annual ABCA Convention. Over the last seven seasons, the Commodores have secured three trips to the College World Series finals while running their streak to 14 consecutive NCAA Tournament berths — the longest active streak in the Southeastern Conference.

The Commodores capped their shortened 2020 campaign ranked No. 5 by Collegiate Baseball. Vanderbilt led the nation in ERA (1.84) while finishing third in hits allowed per nine innings (5.51), fourth in strikeouts per nine innings (12.1) and fifth in shutouts (4).

Vanderbilt posted an SEC-record 59 wins during its historic 2019 College World Series championship campaign. The Commodores captured the SEC regular season and tournament titles, becoming the first program to accomplish the feat outright since Vanderbilt’s 2007 program did so. The Commodores set single-season records in home runs (100), RBIs (541), walks (339), runs (578) and strikeouts (765). For his efforts, Corbin was named American Baseball Coaches Association and Collegiate Baseball’s coach of the year.

The Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award was part of the United States Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport program, which each year served as “A Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete.” The Academy presented the awards to pay tribute to those who have made significant contributions to sport, in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete in several different arenas of sport.

The awards honor exemplary achievement in coaching, all-around athletic performance, courage, humanitarian activity, fitness and media, among others. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Honorary Doctorates, Distinguished Service Awards, Outstanding Athletes, and Alumni of the Year awards. This is the 37th year of the Academy’s Awards of Sport program.

Founded in 1984, ASAMA is dedicated to the preservation of sports art, history, and literature. The ASAMA collection is composed of more than 1,800 works of sport art across a variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, assemblages, prints and photographs. The museum is open free to the public from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays. For more information, go to www.asama.org.

Because of his career of dedication to global sport and his leadership in the growth of eSports in the United States and around the world, Vlad Marinescu has been named the recipient of the United States Sports Academy’s 2020 Honorary Doctorate.

Each year as part of its Awards of Sport program, the Academy presents the award to a person who has made outstanding contributions to sport and to society. Marinescu is the President of both the International Esports Federation (IESF) and the United States eSports Federation. He also serves as the chief media and marketing officer for the International Judo Federation.

Marinescu will receive the Academy’s Honorary Doctorate at the institution’s combined graduation and Awards of Sport program on its campus in Daphne, Ala., on Thursday, 12 November 2020.

Born in Romania and raised in the United States, Marinescu has worked in leadership roles in international sport for more than 15 years. Marinescu was involved in the International Judo Federation’s recent modernization efforts in event organization, sponsorship, marketing, TV production and rights distribution. He also previously served as the Director General of SportAccord – now known as the Global Association of International Sports Federations – the umbrella organization for all international sports federations as well as organizers of multi-sports games and sport-related international associations.

The Academy’s Awards of Sport honor those who have made significant contributions to sport in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Honorary Doctorates, Medallion Series, Athletes of the Year and Alumni of the Year awards.

Because of his meticulous attention to detail and uncanny ability to capture the iconic expressions of his larger-than-life subjects, nationally renowned painter Brian Fox has been named the United States Sports Academy’s 2020 Sport Artist of the Year, Painter.

A resident of Somerset, Mass., Fox specializes in painting the world’s greatest legends in sports and music. Fox has painted some of the biggest icons of our time, including the late Jackie Robinson, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, actor Johnny Depp, boxer Muhammad Ali, baseball Hall of Fame shortstop Derek Jeter and soccer superstar Pele.

The Sport Artist of the Year award presentation is part of the institution’s annual Academy’s Awards of Sport (AAOS) event and reception on Thursday, 12 November, 2020 on the Academy campus in Daphne, Ala. The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Academy’s 36^th Annual Awards of Sport program, a celebration of sport and art and a “Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete.”

The Academy’s Awards of Sport honor those who have made significant contributions to sport in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Medallion Series, Honorary Doctorates, Athletes of the Year and Alumni of the Year Awards.

“Being recognized by a prestigious organization such as the United States Sports Academy is an incredible honor,” Fox said. “I am as humbled as I am grateful.

“Having been selected for this honor is truly one of the highlights of my career, especially given that I’m in the company of such talented artists as Stephen Holland and LeRoy Neiman—previous recipients—who have positively influenced my life’s work.”

Fox has exhibited his works in New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, and Lexington. His art is featured in numerous galleries around the country. Over the course of a 20-year career, Fox has also been able to forge relationships with celebrities, athletes and corporations, and charitable organizations. Because of those relationships, Fox’s work can be found in many corporate and private collections, including those owned by singer Steven Tyler, NFL quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen, actor Mark Wahlberg, NASCAR’s Dale Earnhardt Jr. and many others.

In addition to being honored as the official artist for the 2009 NHL Winter Classic, Fox has been selected as the official commemorative artist for Major League Baseball’s 2007- 2009 All-Star Games, as well as the official artist for the 2007 World Series held in Boston.

One highlight of Fox’s career happened when, in anticipation for the 2010 Olympics and 30th Anniversary of the “Miracle on Ice,” the artist collaborated with Olympic hero Jim Craig to create a collection of original artwork commemorating the United States hockey team’s historic victory over the Soviet Union in 1980. The first release in the series was a portrait of Craig draped in the American flag. Fox was also commissioned by a private collector to produce a one-of-a-kind collectors portrait commemorating the 30-year anniversary of “Miracle on Ice.” The portrait was signed by all members of the 1980 U.S. Hockey Team, including Craig. Fox’s work has been selected in the Society of Illustrators in New York and Los Angeles. The artist has also produced a series of original paintings exclusively for Walt Disney Parks and Cruise lines. Fox’s artwork exhibits and sells throughout the United States.

Accomplished Greek painter Mina Papatheodorou Valyraki has donated several signed and numbered silk prints to the American Sport Art Museum & Archives (ASAMA) on the campus of the United States Sports Academy in Daphne, Ala.

Recognized as the Academy’s 2002 Sport Artist of the Year, Valyraki is known worldwide for her abstract expressionist paintings featuring a variety of subjects from athletes to automobiles.

The artist’s donated silk prints depict red Ferrari automobiles, sailboats, and Olympic competition. They join a large assortment of other pieces from the artist on display at ASAMA, including her “Daphne and Apollo,” which is featured prominently in the museum’s main lobby.

Valyraki’s pieces can be viewed across the globe in such locales as the National Gallery in Athens, the Olympic Museum of Lausanne and the United Nations Building in New York, N.Y.  Valyraki’s acrylic painting, “Still Life in Yellow,” became a permanent piece in the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.

In 2013, she was awarded the Guirlande d’Honneur, the highest award presented by the Federation Internationale Cinema Television Sportifs (FICTS), an organization that promotes the values of sport through film and television.  In 2017 she received the FICTS Mention D’Honneur Award in Arts and Sports. She won the International Olympic Committee’s 2014 Art and Sport Award.

Her work, “The Downhill Skier,” became one of the official posters for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. In 2003, five of her paintings were included in a stamp collection issued by the Greek Post Office celebrating the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens. Her paintings were also featured on the official 2004 Olympic Games calendar and official posters.

In 1998, Valyraki received one of many notable honors of her career when she was commissioned as the official painter of the 35th anniversary of the Italian sports car brand, Lamborghini. Her nearly 60-foot long painting, “La Storia Della Lamborghini,” continues to adorn the Lamborghini headquarters.

Valyraki has become internationally known for her ability to capture the movement of athletes and to instill in her work a sense of perpetual motion through the use of impressionist technique, vibrant color, precise lighting, and gifted brush stroke.

A native of Athens, Greece, Valyraki earned degrees in painting from the Supreme School of Fine Arts of the National Technical University of Athens and in theoretical studies from the School of Fine Arts of Athens.  She earned a Ph.D. in History of Art from the University of Florence, Italy.

The owners of an antique store in Ohio recently donated a unique collection of tennis magazines and books to the American Sport Art Museum & Archives (ASAMA) on the campus of the United States Sports Academy.

Priscilla and Greg Wilt of Sidney, Ohio, donated the collection of tennis magazines dating from 1974 through 2018 to ASAMA. The collection is not sequential, but instead the pieces follow the athletic careers of tennis stars through years of magazine feature photos and articles. Some of the all-time tennis greats are featured, including Andre Agassi, Bjorn Borg, Steffi Graf, Venus Williams, Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and others.

The donated collection also includes biographies, memoirs, educational and instructional books, and ephemera of the game of tennis. The collection will be featured in a special display in the Academy’s Dr. Robert Block Library along with selections of tennis art held in ASAMA. “Not only do these magazines follow the careers of some of the great tennis stars, but they also show changes in tennis fashion, changes in tennis equipment, and they show how magazine design has evolved since the 1970s,” Academy Library Director Dr. Vandy Pacetti-Donelson said. “The collection presents some interesting study opportunities for scholars and students. You can see trends in athletic wear and hair styles, and you can also infer some things about what was allowed in tennis at the time and what was not.”

Mobile Sports Hall of Fame chairman and former University of South Alabama athletic director Joe Gottfried has been presented the United States Sports Academy’s 2018 Distinguished Service Award (DSA).

Given for outstanding contributions to sport, the award was presented to Gottfried at the home of Academy Founding President Dr. Thomas P. Rosandich. Academy trustee and Art Committee member Susan McCollough presented the award to Gottfried.

Gottfried joined the University of South Alabama Department of Athletics in 1981 as assistant athletic director, then held the post of athletic director for 25 years beginning in 1984.

Gottfried’s tenure at the South Alabama was marked by success, as Jaguar athletic teams won more than 100 Sun Belt Conference championships and 10 Commissioners’ Cups for most successful overall program. Under his leadership, South Alabama’s athletic facilities grew tremendously, including completion of the 10,000-seat Mitchell Center, football practice fields and field house.

Gottfried currently serves as the chairman for the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, which works to recognize and honor outstanding athletes and sports personalities from Mobile, Ala.

The Distinguished Service Award is part of the United States Sports Academy’s Awards of Sport, which each year serve as “A Tribute to the Artist and the Athlete.” The Academy presents the awards to pay tribute to those who have made significant contributions to sport, in categories as diverse as the artist and the athlete in several different arenas of sport. The awards honor exemplary achievement in coaching, all-around athletic performance, courage, humanitarian activity, fitness, and media, among others. The Academy’s American Sport Art Museum and Archives (ASAMA) annually recognizes these men and women through its Sport Artist of the Year, Honorary Doctorates, Distinguished Service Awards, Medallion Series, Outstanding Athletes, and Alumni of the Year awards.