The Clemson athletic department has announced winners of the Frank Howard Award, the IPTAY Athlete of the Year, and the Brandon Streeter Award for the 2021-22 academic year. A 20-person committee made up of local media and Clemson administrators voted on the candidates.
The Frank Howard Award is the honor presented each year to a student-athlete for bringing honor to Clemson athletics. This year’s recipient is baseball All-American Max Wagner.
Wagner was a finalist for the Dick Howser Trophy and a semifinalist for the Golden Spikes Award, two honors presented each year to the top player in college baseball. Wagner was a unanimous first-team All-American and First-Team All-ACC selection in 2022, when he hit a school-record-tying 27 home runs. He hit .369 overall with 76 RBIs and a .496 on-base average. He also had a .852 slugging percentage, second best in Clemson history.
Perhaps the most impressive accomplishment was Wagner’s home run every 7.5 at bats. That broke a record that had been held by Doug Kingsmore since 1954. From April 17-23, Wagner tied a school record with a home run in five consecutive games.
Wagner was also named to the All-ACC Academic team and was named the ACC Player-of-the-Year. In July, he was selected in the second round of the MLB draft, the No. 42 overall player selected. He was No. 23 among college players and No. 16 among Power Five Conference players.
The native of Green Bay, Wis. is the first baseball player drafted who played his high school baseball at a Green Bay district public school.
Wagner was one of the great stories of college baseball in 2022, as he made significant improvement from his first year. In 2021, as a first-year freshman, he hit .214 with just two home runs and nine RBIs. His improvement of 25 home runs over the previous year is the greatest one-year improvement in Clemson history.
The IPTAY Athlete of the Year takes into account excellence on the field and achievement in the classroom and the community. This year’s recipient is Clemson senior golfer Jacob Bridgeman.
Bridgeman was named the ACC Scholar Athlete of the Year for Men’s Golf for the second consecutive year, the first two-time recipient of the award in seven years, and just the second two-time recipient in league history. He was named to the Academic All-ACC team and the All-ACC team for the third time in his career.
Additionally, Bridgeman was the recipient of a Weaver-James-Corrigan Scholarship from the ACC for his outstanding…
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