Recent Ohio Wesleyan University graduate Kyle Holliday (Van Wert, OH/Van Wert) has been named the winner of the 2009 North Coast Athletic Conference Don Hunsinger Award.

Holliday starred for the Battling Bishop men's basketball team for four years, serving as team captain as a senior. A two-time All-North Coast Athletic Conference player, he earned first team honors and was named NABC All-Great Lakes District as a senior, and led OWU to the conference tournament title and an NCAA Division III tournament bid in 2007-08. He was president and treasurer of the Athletes in Action Student Leadership team, president of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, and was a member of the Ohio Wesleyan Athletic Council.

In the classroom, he posted a 3.87 grade-point average in accounting, with a minor of economics management. He was a two-time ESPN The Magazine Academic All-District IV honoree, and earned ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America recognition as a senior. Selected to the Sigma Beta Delta Business Honor Society, Holliday was named an Ohio Wesleyan Top 50 Scholar-Athlete three years, was recognized as the senior male OWU Scholar-Athlete with the highest grade-point average, and was named one of 10 male North Coast Athletic Conference Scholar-Athlete Award winners. Crowing those achievements was Holliday's selection as a recipient of a prestigious NCAA Post-Graduate Scholarship.

In addition to his success on the court and with his studies, Holliday found time to be a student mentor for a Delware-area elementary school throughout his collegiate career, helped organize a Special Olympics event, and participated in ALS and Relay For Life walks.

He plans to join GBQ Partners in Columbus, Ohio this fall, while preparing to take his CPA exam, and will then enroll in graduate school.

Holliday was one of five outstanding nominees considered by the selection committee. The candidates were:

Michael Barnes, football, indoor and outdoor track & field, Denison University
Brock Graham, football, Wabash College
Michael Machala, swimming, Kenyon College
Kyle Taljan, soccer, indoor & outdoor track & field, Oberlin College

This award commemorates former Oberlin administrator and coach Don Hunsinger, who had a far-reaching influence on the athletes he coached in a wide variety of sports. Over more than three decades, Hunsinger served Oberlin as athletic director, chairman of the department of physical education, had stints as head coach for Yeoman football, baseball, and men's and women's tennis, and assisted with the men s and women s basketball programs. Four times he earned NCAC Coach of the Year recognition, twice in men's tennis and twice in women's. Hunsinger, who retired from the College in 2008, continues to serve the conference as Director of Tennis and assists in the administration of the conference's swimming & diving championship.

The award recognizes one male senior student-athlete who has distinguished himself throughout his collegiate career in the areas of academic achievement, athletics excellence, service and leadership. Each conference institution can nominate a distinguished male student-athlete for the honor. A committee of North Coast Athletic Conference administrators, in conjunction with the conference office, makes the selection.