RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – On Wednesday, the Great American Conference named Harding’s Sam Tandy as its 2023-24 Male Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Tandy’s recognition gives Harding five-straight GAC Male Scholar Athlete recipients. Cody Smith won last year. Matthew Hipshire won in both 2021 and 2021-22. Mills Bryant earned the honor in 2019-20. He became the first golfer recognized as the league’s Male Scholar Athlete of the Year.
Tandy graduated with a degree in finance. He finished with a 3.97 GPA. This season, he became the lone Division II golfer named as a finalist for the Byron Nelson Award – an award given out to the outstanding Division I, II, III, or NAIA scholar-athlete of the year. He earned his third Cobalt Golf All-America Scholar honor. In 2023, he claimed the NCAA Elite 90 award and earned First-Team Academic All-America honors.
On the course, he won GAC Player of the Year. He led the Bisons to the National Championships for the second-straight season. He finished 10th in the individual competition. He became a PING All-American the second-straight year after placing on the First Team. He won the NCAA Fall Central Region Preview and registered 11 top-10 finishes in 12 tournaments..
Other nominees for the 2023-24 GAC Male Scholar Athlete of the Year award included Arkansas Tech’s Logan Schwenke (Baseball), Arkansas-Monticello’s Ryan Williams (Football), East Central’s Colton Schaper-Kotter (Football), Henderson State’s Kaden Argenbright (Baseball), Northwestern Oklahoma State’s Trevor Saire (Baseball), Oklahoma Baptist’s Nick Harris (Football), Ouachita Baptist’s G. Allen (Baseball), Southeastern Oklahoma State’s Kody Clouet (Basketball), Southern Arkansas’ Connor Harrington (Golf), Southern Nazarene’s Landon Hendrix (Golf) and Southwestern Oklahoma State’s Geoff Marlow (Baseball).